Liz nodded understandingly. Part of Derek’s job at the council involved assessing land for potential building there. Dishforth Lea was a pretty field, by a pretty village; feelings were running high, with people making lengthy and outraged social media posts on a daily basis.
Derek pulled his white shirt out of his shorts and flapped it against his stocky frame. ‘It’d save half the argy-bargy if only people would look at the pictures and the plans – they’re all on the website … Instead, they’re asking a load of totally unnecessary convoluted questions.’ He sighed, a deep sigh. ‘Anyway – how’s your morning going? How were the gruesome twosome? What were you talking about?’
‘This and that,’ said Liz, angling the laptop round to avoid any unnecessary questions about potential killers. Yes, the various faces and newspaper headlines were hidden by the food diary, but you never knew and her husband was looking stressed enough already. ‘I was just updating my food diary. Don’t forget it’s pre-diabetes tonight so we’ll need tea earlier.’
Derek rumpled her hair in an understanding way. ‘You can tell old Happy Harvey we’ve the food police descending on us tomorrow. Our Jacob’s planning to try a new recipe on us and wanted to know if we have any frozen spinach.’
They smiled, a smile of mutual adversity, and Derek picked up his coffee and retreated to the door.
‘If you want me,’ said Liz, ‘I’ll be down in the allotment.’
Derek stopped dead in his tracks, turning all the way round to face her. ‘The allotment?’
‘Billy’s bench, remember? I said I’d do it ages ago.’
Billy’s bench was a feature much cherished by the various allotment holders, a memorial to one of its best loved and long-standing members. The holders all took it in turn every six months to treat it with wood preservative and this time it was Liz’s turn.
Now Derek was looking at her as if she’d said ‘minefield’ not ‘allotment’.
‘Liz, have you not heard any of the warnings they’re giving out?’ He sounded gravely horrified. ‘About staying out of the direct heat for long periods of time?’
‘It won’t be a long period of time,’ she started to say, but Derek was in full anxious flight, face furrowed with concern.
‘Older people – that’s us – need to stay out of the direct sunlight.’
Liz knew better than to argue. She merely nodded obediently, fighting to keep the exasperation from her face. Derek crossed the kitchen, touched her shoulder. ‘It’s vital us old gimmers stay safe,’ he said earnestly. ‘If you want, later on when I’ve finished work, you can maybe do twenty minutes and I’ll stand over you with an umbrella.’
Liz nodded without speaking and Derek smiled again.
‘We’ve Jacob’s Spinach Surprise, remember,’ he said, and Liz smiled brightly to hide her feelings.
Older people! Old gimmers!
She watched the shorts-and-shirt-sporting figure retreat and found herself thinking about the night they’d met all those years ago, at her cousin Janice’s wedding. That hotel place in Kirkstall … meeting, talking – having one too many Babychams … and then walking down to the abbey, watching the night sky growing palerand paler over the stark, smoke-stained stones. Realising, with a feeling as wonderful and unspectacular as the grey dawn that this was the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with.
She sighed, for days long gone by when her beta cells could cope with as much Babycham as she cared to drink. Of one thing though she was certain. She’d been looking forward to space and peace and thinking time down the allotment repainting the bench: no way would she find any of those things with Derek hovering behind her with an umbrella.
She sighed again. The food diary could wait. She reached to shut down the laptop, saw the photos smiling blandly out at her – Chloe and Caro … Two hurt, two angry people with a lot more to feel upset about than Spinach Surprise or an untreated bench. A thought struck her. Had it been either ofthemvisiting the Snuggery the night Neville died? Derek’s words popped into her mind.If only people would look at the pictures… then they’d KNOW.
Pictures …
Suddenly life felt a little less grey and old-gimmery.
Derek was deep into a phone call, spreadsheet on his PC, duvet cover draped over the window to further block out the light and heat. He was barely aware of the Post-it Note his wife carefully affixed to his Dishforth fields ring binder.
Gone to shop: out of frozen spinach – will go STRAIGHT inside.
She didn’t feel especially guilty about the lie, because it wasn’t a lie – it just wasn’t the whole truth.
Today the headscarf was purple, not pink, but still as bright and sparkly as the smile that had welcomed her. ‘Here we go, my lovely!’
The ice clinked invitingly in the jug of elderflower Sidrah carried in. Liz smiled and decided that Derek would agree that the benefits of hydration on such an afternoon definitely outweighed the potential drawbacks of a sugary drink. Sidrah’s welcome had been warm, fulsome even. One that Liz recognised instantly: thewelcome of a lonely person who knew all too well what it was like to feel the hours stretching away. Liz felt awkward and not a little guilty at this; making conversation about the plants in the garden was one thing, asking her about the various comings and goings at the Old Barn felt like quite another. However, Liz Newsome non-gimmery detectivator had come here for a reason.
As Sidrah poured the drinks, Liz looked round the opulent room, unlike any Yorkshire cottage interior she’d ever seen. The kitchen and living room had been knocked into one, the walls stripped back to the stone, and what had probably been a rather conventional fireplace replaced by an altogether flashier affair of slabs and beams. The decor was a makeover show’s dream of white carpets, leather sofas, a positively enormous wall-mounted TV, state-of-the-art kitchen appliances, including a wine fridge – and yet for all the opulence the room felt awkward, slightly out of place – much like Sidrah herself. The main window – like the garden – gave an almost flawless view of both the Snuggery and the Old Barn. Liz could see the window of Neville’s study and remembered with a stab of embarrassment her fevered fumbling through his filing drawers.
‘I’ll just shut this lot down,’ said Sidrah, indicating a laptop on the kitchen counter flanked by ring binders and a magazine box; presumably this was the home business.
‘What is it you do?’ asked Liz.
