“This road has been blocked off,” he said. Yes, that was obvious. “While the police carry out investigations believed to be linked to the death of Lennie Green.” And on he went, saying so much without saying anything of use:Whydid they believe that? That was what we wanted to know, along with how Mr. and Mrs. Billings got homeif that road was blocked off? They must have had to go all the way round, through Great Beadington. They would have been caught up in the traffic from town. It would have taken them ages. I wondered if they’d been late for Silver Surfers.
Then, Arty, wearing one of the cravats I’d made. Artemis Rainbow, the caption bearing his name said. I’d never thought to ask him his surname, but it was every bit as good as his first name.
“They seem like a nice family,” he said. “Well, I only met the lady of the manor, but she was always happy to boil a kettle for us, hand out a biscuit, or stop for a chat, and she’s a genius with a needle and thread.”
James looked at me, an eyebrow raised.
Arty continued. “That said, we don’t know this is about them, it’s easy to get access to the area. We opened the gate and drove through. So did the police. And so could anyone else who wanted to, there’s no padlock on there.”
“Three cheers for Artemis Rainbow,” James said. “That will be our line of defense. After all, anyone can walk through there.”
“Does anyone else have keys to the mausoleum?” I asked him, seeing a flaw in the defense.
“The mausoleum is lying in pieces all over the ground; no one needs a key,” he said. “And no one’s said his body was in there. They could’ve dug a hole and buried him but not dug it deep enough or dug it too close to the river. Or given up with digging and just dropped him in the water.”
That made sense. I was starting to believe it myself, but the reporter had more to say:
“Daisy Dixon, formerly Daisy Langley, married to the billionaire owner of Langley Hall, was previously the perpetrator of a mass poisoning…”
“Oooh!” James said and he laughed. Even with all that was going on, he gave a little laugh.
“That makes me sound like Lucrezia Borgia,” I said, master poisoner of sixteenth-century Rome. “That’s not what it was.” And I felt a little pang that Arty was probably watching this. If he’d heard that, would he still want to accept biscuits and T-shirts from me?
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, I listened through the wall as James rose, showered, and dressed. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what I would do when I got up and how I was going to get to the end of the day, knowing what had happened in the graveyard the day before and what must surely be to come.
“I’ll phone the police when I get to the office,” James said as he prepared to leave. “I’ll see if I can get the lie of the land and decide where to take it from there. Are you going to loaf around in bed all day?”
I shook my head. “It’s only just gone six.”
He sighed theatrically, said something about “the best part of the day,” and left. The sound of the front door slamming as he exited the house was the best part of the day, after the sound of the car moving off the drive. I stood up, yanked the bedstead forward slightly, and made another mark on the wall before setting forth to wander aimlessly around the house.
I watched the breakfast news; house prices were down and cases of syphilis were up. Then I went to get dressed, a sleeveless top made from one of James’s old shirts and a simple skirt made from a curtain, something I could have knocked together by age twelve.
Mrs. Billings would soon be arriving for her self-authorized overtime, but as yet, no word from James about what had been discussed with the police, and no sight of the police themselves. I put out a decorative plate for Mrs. B to pinch and hurried downstairs, just as she appeared in the old kitchen.
***
“It were murder,” Mrs. Billings said, draping her raincoat over a chair.
“What was?” I asked, hoping she was going to say the journey home after the police had blocked the road, but she didn’t.
“Lennie Green.”
“Murder? Who said that?” I clutched the table to steady myself, while thinking that actually, it wasn’t murder, it was an accident, acompleteaccident. But that would be beside the point if the police had decided it was murder.
“All over the village,” she said. “It’s all they’re talking about.” And she burst into tears.
I didn’t know what to do. I’d never seen her cry before; I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone of her generation cry. I looked around for tissues. There were none, but we had kitchen roll. It was gratefully received.
I had a hundred questions, but I didn’t know which ones were appropriate to ask: Who said it was murder? Whoexactly? Was it a shameless gossip or someone connected to the investigation? How could they tell? Surely he was a lump of mush by the time they found him. Do they have any suspects? Who? If not, why not and when willthey have suspects? And who will those suspects be? Did Mrs. Billings actually know him and, if not, why was she so upset?
I tentatively started with a very good question. “Couldn’t he have just fallen in the water?”
Mrs. Billings looked at me, thinking. “Wouldn’t the police have said so, if he’d just fallen in?”
“Maybe it didn’t occur to them that someone would say it was murder. Maybe that’s so far-fetched they didn’t think anyone would think for a minute it was murder.”
