A Village Murder Read online

  Adam planned a morning away from The Plough. For a few hours, he’d forget about Imogen Bishop, the crazy nameless dog that had adopted him, and Gregory Bishop’s murder.

  The sun shone and he had an appointment with his old friend, Henry, the owner of a Yeovil art gallery.

  His own work would never merit gallery space, but Adam found relaxation wandering through Henry’s finds. Occasional paintings touched a chord with their beauty. More often, he shook his head in wonder at the weird art people bought. Where did they hang these things? Could they stare at vast slabs of colour while they ate without indigestion?

  Give me a Turner or a Constable, any day.

  Henry, ruthless with his buying mistakes, had told Adam he wanted to unload a job lot of unsaleable canvases currently cluttering up his storeroom.

  ‘I need the space. You can have ’em for peanuts. Cheaper than new canvases.’

  Adam doubted that. Henry’s haggling was legendary.

  There was one obstacle to Adam’s plan to visit the gallery. What should he do with this dog? He could hardly let it loose among Henry’s canvases. He cringed at the chaos his new friend could wreak.

  What did proper dog owners do when they went to work? Wasn’t it cruel to leave an animal alone?

  Racked with guilt, he ushered the dog into his sitting room, placing a bowlful of dog food on layers of old towels. ‘Twice the price of corned beef,’ he muttered. ‘Hope you enjoy it.’ He added a larger bowl of water. ‘You be good,’ he warned, without much hope. ‘I’ll be home soon.’

  It was a mistake to look behind as he left. The dog’s tail twitched, his huge brown eyes pleaded, but Adam hardened his heart.

  ‘Stay,’ he commanded, closing the door.

  Throughout his drive to the town, a new doggy smell filled Adam’s car, adding to the guilt. Amazing how fast a dog can infiltrate your life.

  The hour in the gallery was meant to be an oasis of calm, far away from dead bodies, snooty police colleagues, and stray animals. The gallery owner, however, had other ideas.

  Henry, corpulent, irrepressibly cheerful and expensively dressed, had heard of the ‘Murder in the Hotel’, as the newspapers had dubbed the death of Gregory Bishop. ‘Don’t you live in Lower Hembrow?’ he accused as Adam walked in. ‘Where people die in conservatories?’

  Adam hesitated.

  ‘Come on, spill the beans. Any theories?’

  ‘Not yet. Probably an accident – drink and drugs, maybe. I’m retired, remember. It’s none of my business. I’m enjoying a quiet life.’

  Henry peered into Adam’s face. ‘Oh yeah?’ he said. ‘In that little backwater? I’ll give you six months and you’ll be longing for the city life. You’ll go stir crazy in that part of the world, where nothing ever happens.’

  ‘Apart from the occasional unexplained death?’

  Henry laughed, jowls wobbling. ‘Apart from that. You never know, it could be a murder.’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  Henry’s face fell. ‘Pity. I was hoping for some decent gossip to give the wife this evening. Otherwise, what are we going to talk about after forty years? EastEnders?’ He gave a theatrical shiver. ‘At least that Poldark’s finished. All the wife could talk about was the guy’s six-pack. At her age! And me with my party seven. Ha, ha.’ Henry slapped his stomach. ‘Now, I was going to sell you a few canvases at mates’ rates, that’s right, isn’t it?’

  Adam scratched his head. ‘You tried the mates’ rates thing on me once before. I ended up paying over the odds. Let’s set a fair price, shall we?’

  They haggled for a while, finally agreeing a price, toasting their success with a bottle of Wilkins cider.

  ‘Any masterpieces amongst this lot?’ Adam flicked through a dozen leaning against the wall. ‘Seriously, you couldn’t sell this?’ He picked up a canvas with two red squares set at jaunty angles.

  ‘Funnily enough, no. Here, wait a minute,’ Henry yanked out a large painting from the back of the pile. ‘I’d forgotten about this one. It’ll interest you.’

  The painting was stylised. The bird’s-eye view, as though painted from the air, showed a series of small gardens, formally laid out in the Tudor style, with box hedges marking out geometric rectangles and circles. A straight, placid rill of water cut through from top to bottom, ending in a fountain.

  ‘It looks familiar,’ Adam leaned closer. ‘I wonder if I’ve seen the setting. It’s hard to tell – places look different from above. Is it a stately home?’

  Henry guffawed. ‘Nope. It’s the garden where they found that chap. What’s it called – the River Something Hotel?’

  ‘Streamside.’ Adam considered. ‘So it is. I should have recognised it; I’ve tried to paint it myself. Any idea whose work it is?’

  Henry shook his head. ‘I picked it up for pennies, just for the canvas.’

  ‘To sell on and make a killing out of saps like me…’ Adam twisted his head to one side until he understood the angles. He squinted at the signature, but it was smudged and almost unreadable. ‘Is that an F?’ It was dated 1975. ‘Painted a while ago. The place looks different, now.’

  ‘There’s another like it, in the back. Give me a minute…’ Henry wandered away, puffing and panting out of sight. ‘Got it,’ he called, emerging with a red face and a smaller painting. ‘This isn’t oils. It’s a watercolour, by the same chap, whoever he is. I took it on years ago, from another gallery.’ He named a price, holding the painting out as Adam nodded. ‘Mind you,’ he mused, ‘maybe I should hang on to it. The value’s about to go through the roof, now the hotel’s notorious.’

  ‘Too late,’ Adam grabbed it from his friend’s hands. ‘It’s mine.’

  This canvas was small and square, and seemed unfinished. The artist had sketched in the geometry of the garden, but focused, with vivid, lively brushstrokes, on the central flowerbed.

  ‘Nice little work, a bit Monet in feel,’ Henry said. ‘Pity the artist never finished it.’

  ‘Any more like this?’

  Henry grunted. ‘No. I’d forgotten about this one, to be honest.’ He glanced at Adam’s face and grumbled. ‘Can’t believe I’m letting you have it at that price. More fool me.’

  10

  Orchid

  Adam struggled from the car, arms full of canvases, and turned his key in the lock. An ear splitting salvo of barking assaulted his ears. He’d forgotten his four legged companion – even getting used to the doggy smell in the car.

  Warily, he pushed the door open and the animal leapt up, drooling, paws on Adam’s chest, as excited as though his new owner had been away for a week.

  Devastation met Adam’s eyes. Scratches raked the wood panel of the door to the bar. Its handle bent at an angle, but the door had held.

  Adam hardly knew where to begin. A nearby cushion, chewed to a mush, had sent its feathers flying across the carpet. A vase lay nearby, water seeping from it in a brown rivulet. Bare stalks had been tossed aside, and several flower heads had disappeared. ‘Hope roses aren’t bad for dogs.’

  The dog’s feeding bowl lay upside down, licked clean.

  ‘How did you do all that so fast?’ Adam demanded.

  The dog lifted one paw.

  ‘You think that’ll get you out of trouble?’

  Adam mopped and tidied as best he could, stood back and considered the dog.

  ‘I suppose you were bored. Sorry, old chap. My fault.’

  He attached the lead, an overpriced purchase from the vet, and gripped it securely.

  ‘We’ll show my new paintings to our neighbour.’

  Panting, tongue lolling from his mouth, the dog trotted beside Adam as he staggered across the road to The Streamside Hotel.

  Imogen looked thinner, her face more lined, but she greeted the dog with pleasure. ‘Hello, lovely. Is he treating you well?’

  ‘I’m at my wits’ end,’ Adam confessed. ‘He’s adopted me, and he’s a friendly fellow, but he’s wrecked my sitting room.’

  ‘Did yo
u take him for a run this morning?’

  ‘No.’

  She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I was planning to take him to the shop, later…’

  ‘That’s not enough. Mrs Topsham’s is only just around the corner. He needs proper exercise. Look at him, he can’t stand still – he’s bursting with energy.’

  She looked a fraction less tense than last time Adam saw her, but he knew better than to make guesses about her real feelings. In his experience, the worst killers often pretended to be devastated, while innocent family members could be too shocked to show emotion.

  ‘He can run around the garden here,’ she offered. ‘There are gates and fences round the grounds, so he shouldn’t get out. Unless he can open gates?’

  ‘Wouldn’t put it past him,’ Adam muttered.

  ‘My father kept dogs here, but the last one died a few years ago.’ She led the way through the hotel lounge, and out of the French doors. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘He doesn’t have one.’

  ‘That’s terrible. You’ll have to think of one.’

  ‘Trouble? Wrecker?’

  Laughing, Imogen stooped to let the dog off his lead. ‘Wow, look at him run…’ The animal shot across the field towards the stream. ‘He’s going to need long walks. Twice a day.’

  Adam changed the subject. ‘The police have left, then?’

  ‘They took down the tape this morning, while I was out. We can use the garden again, which is a relief, and I’ve reopened the hotel for bookings. The guests who were here then – you know, that night – they’ve all left. Couldn’t wait to spread the gossip, I imagine. I’m dreading reading the online reviews.’

  ‘I think you’ll find business booms. Nothing more exciting than a hotel where someone died.’

  ‘That’s a bit morbid.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Adam winced. He’d been careless. Imogen’s husband was dead. OK, she was a determined lady, in control of herself, and she hadn’t collapsed in a heap at his death, that was admirable, but no matter how she tried to play down her feelings, those extra lines on Imogen’s face told their own tale of shock and loss.

  The police had allowed the crime scene to be closed. They must be sure there was no more evidence to be found there. No more fingertip searches, then. Was DCI Andrews jumping to conclusions? No need to suggest that to Imogen. She was under enough strain.

  She broke into his thoughts. ‘What were those paintings you brought?’

  ‘They came from a mate of mine – a gallery owner. I thought you’d be interested in the subject. It looks like the hotel garden. I’ve left the paintings behind the reception desk. The very attractive young lady with multicoloured nails offered to look after them for me. Shall I set them up in the lounge? I think you’ll be interested, and we can keep an eye on Wrecker while we look at them. Otherwise, he’ll eat everything he can find. He’s already mangled a couple of cushions and I suspect he had a go at the corner of my sofa.’

  ‘Good idea – but please don’t call him Wrecker.’

  Her face became animated when she mentioned the dog.

  Adam smiled, secretly. He had an idea.

  The paintings rested, side by side, on two chairs, the watercolour glowing in the sunshine. ‘The light’s good in here.’

  ‘It’s even better in the orangery. You could paint in there, if you like. Not yet, perhaps. Soon.’ Her smile was tentative. ‘You’re right. These are both paintings of the hotel garden. Artists often came when I was younger. It made my father feel like a proper landowner, I think. Sometimes, whole groups of amateur painters spent the day in the garden, and I would sit and watch. They gave me a little board – you know, one you can put your thumb through to hold it. What are they called?’

  ‘Palettes?’

  ‘That’s it. I’d try to paint on an old bit of canvas. I used to make a wonderful mess. No talent at all.’ She laughed, a proper hoot, the first Adam had heard from her. ‘I used to know a real artist,’ she mused. ‘Daniel Freeman, that was his name. He didn’t always use oils. Sometimes, he used to paint the flowers in watercolour, like in that painting…’

  She fell silent, a thoughtful frown creasing her forehead. Adam waited.

  She muttered, half under her breath, ‘In fact, I wonder if that’s one of his?’ She picked up the smaller canvas and scrutinised it, talking almost to herself. ‘He’d just left school. He was only a couple of years older than me, but he seemed grown-up, like a proper artist.’ A touch of pink lit her face.

  Was Daniel important to her? ‘Did you keep in touch?’ Adam asked.

  ‘What? With Daniel?’ She looked up and the happiness faded away. ‘He came that last summer, just after I left school, before I went off to university. He was a student, at St Martin’s in London, I think. When I… Well, he fell out with my father and left without saying goodbye. I never heard from him again. Then, I married Greg. He’d been at the same school.’

  Adam let the silence spin out as she inspected the picture.

  ‘Do you know,’ she said at last, ‘I think this could be one of Daniel’s. His last name was Freeman. That could be an F, above the date, couldn’t it? He sat in the formal garden for hours, sketching the different flowers. Of course, I didn’t know what they were, in those days. I would now, I think.’

  ‘Tell me?’

  She grinned. ‘Let’s see. Here’s a peony and some campanulas. We have plenty of those here. Pink and blue – they work well together. I’m not sure about this purple flower – oh, wait, it’s an orchid But – oh!’

  Her intake of breath surprised Adam. He’d been idly watching as the sun moved lower in the sky, enjoying the scent of lavender and rosemary drifting through the open doors.

  ‘What have you found?’

  She pointed to a tiny, bright flower, almost hidden behind the lush foliage of a plant that even Adam recognised as a hellebore. ‘That’s so rare. How could we have one of those in the garden? I’m sure it’s a Gold of Kinabalu – amazingly uncommon, especially in England. It comes from Malaysia. One specimen would be worth thousands of pounds.’

  She looked up. ‘My father collected plants. He should have been born in the nineteenth century. He would have loved to be a Victorian plant expert, travelling the world in search of exotic flowers. As it was, every time he went abroad, he returned with a new treasure. You’re not supposed to do that, these days, because of the risk of introducing pests and diseases, but no one seemed to worry, back then.’ She ran a finger over the surface of the painting. ‘This orchid is different. He couldn’t have found it growing in the wild. It would have been protected…’ She paused. ‘I wonder where it came from.’

  ‘He must have bought it.’

  She shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen any documentation. There should have been something in his desk if…’

  ‘If he’d come by it legitimately.’

  ‘Nonsense. Of course, he bought it. I just never knew. But then, I didn’t come here for years.’

  ‘Is it still growing in the garden?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not. I’ll go and look, later, but I’d have noticed. I’ve spent a few hours in the garden since I moved in.’

  Adam was still peering at the painting. ‘Any other valuable plants shown here?’

  ‘I wonder about those snowdrops. There’s quite a market in them, you know.’

  ‘Surely they wouldn’t be in bloom at the same time as this – what did you call it?’

  ‘The Gold of Kinabalu. You’re right, they’re completely out of sequence. Isn’t that odd?’

  ‘Maybe he was just painting the plants he liked, without worrying about looking at them for real.’

  ‘Mm.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘So, they might not have been in the garden at all. That makes more sense. Daniel just liked making gorgeous pictures.’ She stepped towards the door. ‘I’d offer to show you the whole garden, but it’s just about to rain.’ She shuddered. ‘Again.’ She pulled her jacket closer. ‘Can I take a photo
of this painting? I’d like to identify all the plants. It will give me something to do – take my mind off things.’

  Just then, the dog bounced into the room, mud on his nose. ‘You’ve been digging,’ Adam accused. ‘You’re a disgrace.’

  Imogen put the painting down. ‘You’ll have your hands full with this dog. Bring him over, any time he needs a run. He can help me in the garden.’

  ‘If you really mean it?’

  ‘I do. He’ll be good company. But first, you have to give him a proper name. “Disgrace” just won’t do.’

  Sure enough, it was raining again as Imogen sat down at her desk. Fat drops trickled down the window, blurring the garden from view. She craved the outside, yearning to get her hands dirty, but she’d have to wait. She grimaced. The ground would be soaked through.

  Armed with coffee and biscuits, she settled down to research. She needed to know more about the rare plants in the painting. She piled gardening and botany books beside her desk, and flicked through their pages.

  It was difficult to stay focused. Many of her books were old friends that had lived with her for years. Scribbles on the pages, handwritten notes and the line drawings in margins were all familiar, taking her back to hours of exam revision. Later books dealt with landscaping and architecture, reflecting her ongoing training for her profession.

  Younger people would laugh, she knew, at the very idea of leafing through heavy hardbacks, when phone apps could recognise and name plants from photographs. In Imogen’s eyes, they’d never replace the joy of thumbing through her own books, each page crammed with memories.

  She clicked her tongue, annoyed. She was wasting time. She set the familiar texts aside and turned to the weighty glossaries from Kew gardens, and encyclopaedias from the Royal Horticultural Society. If the plants existed, she’d find them between those pages.