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sed to admit that he had arrested the wrong person.
Mark’s refusal to even explain why he thought Tuppence was responsible had created a distance between them that made Harriett remove her fingers from her husband’s. As she did so, she stared steadily into his eyes. Harriett saw sadness flicker in the depths of Mark’s wonderful eyes, which were staring so beseechingly at her, but she was still heartbroken by what he had done to allow her barriers to fall. The speed he had closed her out, turned against her, treated her almost as if she were interfering with his investigation, had worried her. Tuppence had been her lifelong friend, and one of the family’s closest confidants. It was infuriating that Mark had even informed his colleagues at the station to stop her visiting Tuppence while she had been in the cells. He had told them to tell her that ‘it wasn’t fitting for the wife of the investigating officer to visit the convict’. That slap in the face had been the final straw. What Harriett couldn’t decide now was what that meant for her previously happy marriage.
“Harriett-” Mark whispered, wishing now that he hadn’t brought Isaac with him.
Harriett straightened her spine and stood up before putting several feet of distance between them so she could think. She knew that if she remained seated, she was going to launch herself at him, and would regret it later if she did. For the past few days, Mark had spent so much time at the station, yet adamant that Tuppence had to be the one who had killed Mr Lewis even by accident, that Harriett had practically run the family by herself. For now, she needed it to remain that way.
“You will have to speak to Mrs Richmond about the purchase of the Glover farm, and you will have to speak with the Glovers about what they were doing in the street this morning. I can’t tell you anything else. All I know is that Tuppence isn’t a killer, and Mrs Glover was bitter toward Mr Richmond, not Tuppence.”
“Thank you,” Isaac murmured.
Harriett’s face was grim as she turned to nod at Isaac. Before Isaac could leave, Harriett asked: “How is she? Really?”
“She is doing all right,” Isaac replied.
“We are trying to find evidence that she didn’t do it,” Mark offered.
“I tried to see her at the station.” Harriett still ignored her husband and bit down on her annoyance when Mark interrupted her.
“It isn’t wise for you to get involved. To help solve this we must be seen to be impartial, Harriett.” Mark ran a frustrated hand through his hair when Harriett merely glared dismissively at him.
“Please tell her that it was not my fault that I wasn’t allowed to see her. I would love to come and see her now if she will allow it. I can understand that she must hate us by now but what happened wasn’t of my making. It was wrong. I know she wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone. Would you tell her? Please?” Harriett looked so beseechingly at Isaac that Mark muttered a blistering curse.
Isaac sighed. “I am sure that when this has all died down you and she will be able to clear the air but understand that what she has been through has been life-changing. Right now, I am not even sure if she is likely to stay in Tipton Hollow when this is all over. While most people will accept that she was innocent, some won’t. Some will always stubbornly suspect her purely because she found Mr Lewis.”
“That is the consequence of such damaging actions by the police, I am afraid, but given they aren’t the ones who have to live through it they won’t give a damn,” Harriett bit out, sliding a dark look at her husband. “I wish them all in Hades.”
With that, she nodded to Isaac, skirted around him, and promptly slammed out of the house.
Mark stared at her retreating back as she left the yard at the back of the house. For several long moments, he couldn’t say anything. All he could do was stare after the woman who had been such a large part of his life, his soul, his world, that he couldn’t contemplate a future without her. It was bleak. Cold. Icy even. Isolated. Barren. It was not how he had envisaged his future. It was not how he wanted it to be, but he couldn’t find a way around that either. The damage had already been done. Harriett hated him.
“Do you know something, Isaac? If you love Tuppence, don’t waste a moment with her. Don’t allow a single moment of any day to come between you. Things happen. Mistakes can be made. Life can turn against you and bring you problems that can shake happy unions down to their foundations. You can be going about your ordinary business, like Tuppence, and suddenly everything goes wrong and turns your life, your happiness, your hopes for the future on its head. If you learn one thing from this it is that you should never take anything for granted. Make sure that you do everything you can not to just forge a future with Tuppence but to keep her. True happiness, the love of the woman you are born to marry, will only ever appear in your life once. If you are stupid enough to let her go, you might not be able to get her back.”
“Harriett will calm down and forgive you.”
Mark stared blindly out into the yard. “I have never seen her like this.”
“You did arrest her friend. This is serious business, Mark. Wrongful arrest is a serious mistake to make, a serious assumption that could result in a killer walking free, and an innocent person hanging for their crimes.”
Mark sighed. “Because of witnesses, I had to arrest her.”
“No, you didn’t,” Isaac growled. “She found the body. Tuppence didn’t have to be arrested in front of half the bloody village like that. You created the problem. I am not here because I am your friend, Mark. I am here because I am not prepared to allow you, or your arrogant boss, to orchestrate a travesty of justice to try to save your reputations.”
With one last warning look, Isaac turned to the front door. He suspected that it was time to leave before Mark threw him out. By the time he reached the door, though, Mark was directly behind him.
“Where are you going now?” Mark asked when they were outside, and Mark had locked the front door. It wasn’t something he usually did in Tipton Hollow because hardly anything ever happened in the otherwise sleepy village.
“I am going to solve this bloody murder like you should be doing,” Isaac growled. “The place to start is with Mrs Richmond.”
“Her husband has just died,” Mark replied.
“I don’t care if Mrs Richmond is upset. She is going to answer a few questions because it relates to her husband’s murder.”
The heavy silence between them remained in place all the way to the Richmond house. The aged mansion sat nestled amongst dense woodland overlooking a large fishing lake. In any other location it would have been rather pretty. But with the house’s gothic towers jutting skyward from every corner, and rampant moss covering the front door and making it look like a dead man’s gaping mouth, the house had a sinister air of abandonment about it that made Mark want to reach for his gun.
“Jesus. I thought he wanted to create an estate,” Mark whispered.
“Have you been here before?” Isaac asked only to realise then what he was doing. “Why are we whispering?”
