Pat seized her chance. ‘Like the one going off the night he died?’ Again, that expert inflection in her voice. Again, significant glances were exchanged.
‘Thatwasn’t anything to do with the holiday let,’ said Jean. ‘That was Neville Hilton himself. Out in the garden for the whole world to hear.’
‘I’m not surprised the man had a heart attack,’ said Donald. ‘I certainly wouldn’t fancy my chances against her.’
‘By her you mean his wife?’ asked Pat.
Donald nodded. ‘The not-so-merry widow herself.’
‘But didn’t she tell the police she was in Carlisle?’
‘She might well have told them that,’ said Jean. ‘But according to Judy Bestall, she was out in the garden giving poor Neville a right old doing.’
Donald nodded in confirmation. ‘It’s a foolish man who attacks Ffion Hilton,’ he said.
‘Attacks?’ said Pat. ‘Nevillewas attacking his wife?’ Pat pictured that smug figure with the toothy grin.
Both of them nodded. ‘Fair going for her he was,’ said Jean.
Pat was having great difficulty picturing this. ‘And this Judy saw it?’ she asked.
‘It’s not what Judy saw as what she heard,’ said Jean. She paused dramatically. ‘First of all, she shouts out, “That’ll teach you.” And then she screams at the top of her voice, “Have pity on me.” You don’t say that unless someone’s doing something you want them to stop, do you?’
‘“You need to go to a charm school!”’ The plump lady nodded avidly at Liz. ‘Then she says, “For pity’s sake!”’ She cast a nervous glance at the honey-coloured barn conversion directly across the lane. ‘And now—’ Her voice changed, became sadder. ‘And now she’s on her own like me.’
Liz regarded the lady with feelings of sympathy. With her pink sparkly head covering and her thick Birmingham accent, she struck Liz as somewhat out of place in Hollinby Quernhow and indeed as rather lonely. The eagerness with which she’d struck up conversation spoke of someone for whom chatting was the breath of life, and yet something she was not getting much of a chance to do. Her house, ‘SidrahNick’, a long, low amalgam of what looked like three cottages joined together, stood at the quieter end of the village, directly opposite the Hilton residence just before the lane looped out into the fields. The woman’s stall was the only one for at least four or five dwellings, and seemed as lonely as its stallholder. Liz looked at the woman, who she guessed must be Sidrah. And Nick? The woman’s wedding ring, plus the poignant collection of men’s bric-a-brac and prominent Cancer Support collection bucket told their own sad story.
‘And this argument took place in the garden?’ she asked.
‘According to Judy the dog walker lady.’ Sidrah fanned herself vigorously with a Haynes motoring manual. ‘She was walking her Whisky at the playing field at the back.’
Liz wondered how Ffion had had the nerve to lie so blatantly to the police. Panic perhaps? Years of dealing with miscreants in her class had taught her people were apt to tell the most obvious whoppers when faced with their wrongdoings.
‘But you didn’t see this row?’ she asked. Surely from here any altercation in the garden of the Old Barn, or even in front of the adjacent Snuggery would have been hard to miss?
‘No.’ Sidrah shook her head regretfully. ‘No, I’d have been Zooming round then. I usually have a catch-up Zoom with the people who work for me round six thirty, just to finish off the week. Of course, if I’d been out in the garden—’ She cast a loving glance towards the neat ranks and rows of vegetation flanking the side of the cottage. From there, Liz reckoned, she’d have an almost flawless view of the comings and goings at the Old Barn.
‘It is a lovely garden,’ said Liz looking at the expertly tended plants, and unlike Pat there was genuine admiration in her voice. ‘You’re having better luck with your forsythia than I am.’
Sidrah nodded, all at once her face eager. ‘It’s keeping up with the watering,’ she said. ‘I’m just crossing everything hoping they don’t bring this here hosepipe ban in.’
‘You and me both,’ said Liz with feeling. ‘But you’re keeping on top of things so far—’
‘I’ve always loved my garden,’ said Sidrah. ‘And now it gives me something to do of an evening.’ Her voice sounded suddenly lost and her gaze lingered over the table with its silk ties and the men’s hairbrush set.
‘It was so sad about Nev Hilton,’ said Liz. ‘It just goes to show you never know what’s round the corner.’
Sidrah gave a heartfelt nod of agreement. ‘Ain’t that the truth.’
‘And to have a row like that just before he died!’ She felt rather bad changing the subject like this, but at the end of the day therewere things she wanted to find out, and there was always the chance Zippy Doodah could appear, or indeed Ffion Hilton.
‘I wonder what on earth it could have been about?’
‘Summat big, it must have been.’ Once again Sidrah’s face was eager. ‘For pity’s sake– that’s what Ffion was shouting – and you don’t say that unless you’re thoroughly hacked off.’
Liz wondered. To her it seemed a rather restrained choice of words for someone who was really angry. ‘I wonder what it was he’d done?’ she said.
Sidrah shrugged. ‘It could have been anything,’ she said. ‘Always chuntering on about something Nev was – people parking, cutting down trees, all that kerfuffle about the playing field. And bless him, he would never admit he was wrong in any way, shape or form.’
