Her phone pinged and she dropped her eyes to yet another image of Justin and Tiffany, this time leaning on the gate across the lane from the house looking like something from a fashion shoot. Tiffany looked a world away from the bare-faced, peaky-looking figure Pat had glimpsed in Leeds – was it only two days ago? Had there perhaps been some row, which had subsequently been made up?
‘The thing that strikes me about what Chris Canne was telling you,’ said Thelma, ‘is the nature of these rumours.’
Liz frowned. ‘But there wasn’t anything concrete, unless I’m missing something,’ she said.
Pat took a gulp of her iced raspberry medley. ‘I’m telling you everything Mr OBE told me,’ she said in take-it-or-leave-it tones. ‘Which is: a load of people getting in touch with Lodestone saying they’d heard bad things about Nev Hilton.’
‘Butwhatbad things?’ persisted Liz. ‘There’s nothing specific.’
‘Exactly,’ said Thelma. ‘That’s exactly my point. There’s nothing specific.’
Her friends both looked at her. ‘Okay,’ said Pat. ‘I know I’m being thick here, but so what?’ She resolutely turned the phone over to avoid being distracted by any more Instagram posts.
‘Think about it,’ said Thelma in her best Key-Stage-One-planning-meeting tones. ‘If somespecificaccusation had been levelled at Neville it could have been investigated, countered – disproved, even. But with something as vague as this’ – she gestured at her green planning book and the entry detailing Pat’s account – ‘there’s enough to cast a shadow over Neville’s reputation without giving any chance for any sort of redress.’
Liz frowned.
Pat sighed. ‘And?’
‘And,’ said Thelma, shaking the ice cubes in her glass, ‘it looks like someone wasdeliberatelysetting out to cause harm for Neville by spreading these unsubstantiated rumours. Especially when you take into account the way in which this rumour was spread.’
‘Like all rumours are,’ said Pat. She was beginning to feel decidedly exasperated; it was too hot a day to be playing Miss Marple. ‘Someone told someone, who told someone else.’
Thelma drummed her fingers on the notebook. ‘Yes, someone tells someone else, but no one ever knows who the first someone was.’
‘Hearsay,’ said Liz, light dawning.
Thelma nodded. ‘It’s quite simple,’ she said. ‘The person who started this rumour would tell it to a number of people but say they heard it from someone else …’
‘So, you’d never find out who the original source of the rumour was,’ said Pat.
‘Exactly.’ Thelma nodded emphatically. ‘There was a case in our church some years ago – the last church warden but two – quite an upset it caused, and no one ever knew who was behind it.’
‘I bet you had an idea,’ said Pat.
Thelma shrugged modestly, failing to suppress a slight smile playing round her lips. Liz and Pat both knew exactly the sort of thing Thelma was talking about. Working in the community as they had all these years, it was impossible not to.
‘It’s bad enough when it’s just folk talking,’ said Liz. ‘But once you throw emails and Facebook and whatnot into the mix, it’d be virtually impossible to work out what was behind it all.’
‘Whowas behind it all,’ corrected Thelma.
‘Okay,’ said Pat. ‘So, someone had it in for Neville. But didn’t we sort of know that already?’
‘But this with the emails all goes back months,’ said Thelma. ‘To February – long before Neville died.’ She looked at her drink in mild frustration. Iced raspberry lemonade was all very well for a day like this, but it didn’t really lend itself to indulging her favourite habit of stirring.
‘At the risk of sounding like a stuck record,’ said Pat, ‘why do all this in the first place?’
‘The answer to that lies with Neville himself,’ said Thelma.
‘That’s what gets me.’ The words burst from Liz with frustrated force. ‘Fromeverythingwe’ve heard – everything weknow– Neville was more annoying than anything else. Not giving that kiddie her attendance award—’
‘Objecting to the playing field,’ agreed Pat. ‘A bit of a pain in the arse.’
‘But you don’t kill someone for being a bit of a pain in the arse.’ Liz spoke slightly louder than she intended and blushed slightly as more than one customer turned to look at her.
‘You might,’ said Pat. ‘I can think of several people in Borrowby, off the top of my head.’
‘But they’re probably people you might suddenly lash out at,’ said Thelma. ‘Someone takes a parking space you’re heading to, for instance – or rubs you up the wrong way somehow. You might say or even do something there and then, in the heat of the moment. But not when you’ve had time to calm down and think about it.And this with Neville – if I’m right – was very carefully planned.’
