‘Lived,’ corrected Pat, scrubbing chocolate off her sticky fingers with a napkin.
‘But are people going to want to talk?’ persisted Liz. ‘I mean a stand-up fight between husband and wife? And then the husbanddies– it’s a bit of a personal thing.’
‘Are you kidding me, Liz Newsome?’ said Pat, fishing for the coral-pink handbag fan. ‘In a village? I’m surprised there isn’t a display stand about it, even if hardly anyone lives here.’
‘If therewasa fight,’ pointed out Thelma.
‘You think Zippy Doodah got it wrong?’ said Pat.’
‘She’s not what I’d call reliable,’ said Liz, casting uneasily about as if the mere mention of her name could somehow conjure up that mountainous presence.
‘What I mean,’ said Thelma. ‘It’s all hearsay about this “argument”. Your friend – she didn’t actually see this row herself?’
‘She’s not my friend, just someone from pre-diabetes awareness,’ said Liz firmly. ‘And she heard about it from someone called Judy Bestall –shewas the one who saw it.’
‘Exactly,’ said Thelma taking a final sip of her lemonade. ‘Hearsay. And we all know how these things get blown up.’
There was a pause as they considered the truth of Thelma’s words, remembering various times over the years when the most apocalyptic of tales had turned out to have a much tamer reality behind them. Screaming rows that were in fact tense words, cases of measles that turned out to be slight temperatures, that famous time when a burning building proved to be merely a pan of unattended playdough.
‘So what’s the plan?’ said Pat, stuffing the napkin in her bag. ‘Find out if Ffion was telling a load of porkies to the police about not being in Carlisle?’
Thelma nodded. ‘And see if we can find out a bit more about Neville. What people here thought of him.’
Liz and Pat looked at their friend; even in the baking afternoon heat she looked as calm and self-possessed as ever.
‘What are you getting at?’ said Pat.
‘I mean,’ said Thelma. ‘If Ffion was screaming at him loud enough for people to hear, it’d be interesting to knowwhy.’
Some ten minutes later, the band were striking up the theme toJurassic Park, to rather desultory applause from some two dozen wilting onlookers. Outside the white stucco cottage – the Old Post Office – an elderly man and an elderly woman were presiding over a plants stall. With his black visor and her red sun hat, they put Pat in mind of the figures on a weather house. She flashed the man one of her best smiles as she cast her eye over the various yoghurt pots of drooping seedlings.
‘These look great,’ she said enthusiastically, having no idea whether they did or not. If only Liz was with her.
‘It’s the watering that’s the beggar,’ said the man. He looked gloomily up at the blazing sun. ‘The rain butt’s been dry for three weeks now. If it keeps on like this, I’m going to lose half my planters.’
‘I keep telling him,’ said the woman. Was she one of those people who sounded perpetually exasperated or was it the effect of Pat’s smile? ‘He needs to be using the bathwater.’
‘And I keep tellingyou,’ said the man, ‘no way am I heaving great buckets of bathwater through the house.’
The woman looked at Pat, raising her eyes as if to say, ‘What can one do?’ Pat extended the smile to the woman and decided now was the time to cut to the chase.
‘I was thinking how lovely all the gardens were looking when I came through here last week,’ she said. ‘Only I was going to Neville Hilton’s funeral and didn’t get a chance to take a proper look.’
The look shared by Mr and Mrs was both immediate and significant. ‘You knew Nev Hilton?’ said Mrs, trying (and failing) to sound casual.
Pat nodded. ‘I worked with him – well, his wife. Hisfirstwife. But of course, I knew Nev …’ She paused, aiming the coral-pink hand fan at her neck. ‘A bit of a … funny onion.’ The inflectionin her voice was expertly pitched. Pat was getting the non-too-subtle feeling that here were two people who relished a bit of local gossip and she wanted to signal that whatever gossip there was, she was well up for hearing it.
‘A funny onion?’ said the man. ‘I’d put it somewhat differently.’
‘Donald,’ said his wife, but rather perfunctorily, Pat thought.
‘Jean,’ said Donald. ‘Don’t give me all that guff about not speaking ill of the dead. You know as well as I do that that playing field would be up and running if it wasn’t for Nev Hilton putting his spoke in.’
Jean looked wistfully at Pat. ‘This village used to have a cricket team and a football team. Some of us were thinking that if we could get the field sorted, get them going again, it might bring a bit of life back into the place.’
‘And Nev stopped it?’ asked Pat.
‘His Lordship objected,’ said Donald. ‘The field’s behind his house, see. Big letter of complaint to the parish council. His back gate gives on to the field, says it’s a security hazard, too much noise – like there aren’t some right old hullabaloos coming from that holiday let of his!’
