A Body in Seaview Grange by Dee MacDonald (jenna bush book club TXT) 📗

‘You are not to blame for her death,’ Kate said firmly as she removed the cuff. His blood pressure was normal. ‘So please don’t do anything like this again.’

He sighed. ‘I just don’t see any point in living.’

‘There are loads of reasons to be living,’ Kate said as she drew up a chair next to him. ‘Look, here’s my card with my number on it and, if you ever feel like doing this again, please promise that you’ll call me? Please?’

He looked at her mournfully. ‘I will, I promise. But my life is now completely without purpose.’

‘That’s an understandable reaction to your grief, but that feeling will pass. If necessary the doctor will prescribe you some medication to help you.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do. Now, I suggest you get yourself into bed with a hot drink.’

He looked around. ‘Do the others here all know?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Sharon promised she wouldn’t say anything to anyone and I think we can trust her. She’s the reason you survived. If it hadn’t been for Sharon finding you, you probably wouldn’t be here now. She was so upset and keen to help. The other residents only know that you passed out and had to be taken to hospital. They don’t know why, so best leave it that way. And your medical details are confidential.’

‘Thank you, that’s a relief.’ He thought for a moment. ‘My poor wife died of food poisoning, you know, before I came here. It was traced to our local takeaway, which has since been closed down. She had a troublesome digestive system at the best of times. But I was stupid enough to mention this fact down in the residents’ lounge, and now, of course, they associate any sort of poisoning with me. As if I would, or could, have done such a thing!’

‘You mustn’t let them bother you,’ Kate said.

‘If you ask me that stepson of hers had something to do with it,’ Edgar went on. ‘They were always arguing because he was after her money.’

‘Hopefully the police will fit it all together before too long,’ Kate soothed. ‘Would you like me to make you a hot drink before I go?’

‘That’s kind of you, dear, but I’m fine. You go along home, and I’m sorry to have wasted everyone’s time.’ He turned his gaze skywards. ‘The Lord will be my judge and salvation.’

‘Call us if you have any problems.’ Because we’re just that bit nearer than the Lord, she thought.

He must have indeed been desperate, Kate thought. He was a vicar, after all; surely he believed that such an act would land him in Hell? She didn’t know what to think. But, after her conversation with him, she was now convinced that Sharon should be taken off the list because, surely, if she had been the killer, Edgar Ellis would have been a convenient scapegoat.

When she got home she found Angie on the phone, making copious notes. She busied herself in the kitchen for several minutes before Angie walked in, still holding her phone.

‘Maman is finally dead,’ she announced, ‘funeral at Essonne next Monday.’

‘Are you going to go?’ Kate asked.

‘Yes, I’ll have to. We’ve been checking out flights on the phone, Paul and I. I can fly from Exeter to Paris and arrive at much the same time as Paul’s flight from Heathrow. And Jeremy’s flying down from Stockholm, so it’ll be lovely to see him. The plan is that I fly out Sunday and come back Wednesday or Thursday because, apparently, we all have to see her lawyer or whatever he’s called. I expect I’ve been left a coffee pot or something.’

Kate considered a couple of nights in the house on her own with guilty pleasure. Perhaps Woody would share her bed here at Lavender Cottage instead of her always sharing his at On the Up, appropriately named due to it being halfway up to Penhallion cliff. She had only met Maman once, briefly, and hadn’t much cared for her, so there was little point in attempting to appear too grief-stricken at the news. And, in spite of Angie’s apparent indifference to her mother-in-law, Kate knew she’d been close to Maman before she returned to live in France. And Angie’s late husband had been Maman’s favourite son.

As Kate was considering Angie’s in-laws, her own phone buzzed.

‘It’s me,’ said Sharon Starkey. ‘Just to let you know that I plan to pop in to see the old vicar a couple of times a day. None of the others, apart from the Potter sisters, have even bothered to ask how he is, or offered any help. Funny old lot they are!’

‘They are,’ Kate agreed. ‘I’ll look in soon though just to give him a final check-over.’

‘If you have time,’ Sharon said, ‘I’ll make you a coffee.’

The following morning Kate found Angie in the kitchen ironing a black dress.

‘Do you think I should wear a hat?’ she asked. ‘Do you think women wear hats at French funerals?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Kate replied.

Angie was to change her mind three times about what to wear for the funeral before finally setting off for Exeter Airport on Sunday morning. She’d unearthed a little black pillbox hat with a veil which she decided might make her look suitably mysterious in the face of possible fierce French competition. She decided on the black dress but not the check jacket she’d originally earmarked.

‘I’ll just have to be cold,’ she said, ‘but I can probably squeeze a T-shirt on underneath and hope that the church has some form of heating.’

Then she swapped her black kitten-heeled shoes for black stilettos, plainly out to make an impression. Fergal, apparently, had offered to accompany her but even Angie agreed it might not be a very brilliant idea to meet the French family of her late husband with a crazy Irishman in tow. And, Kate thought, particularly as Angie was likely to be footing the bill.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Kate said, ‘because I’m