‘No.’ Jax shook her head emphatically. ‘No, they’d painted a line.Someone had painted a bright yellow line down the back wall.’
Chapter Three
Thursday 10th July
From the Thirsk Garden Centre website:
Beat the heat and find relief with the delicious range of mouth-watering smoothies in our café! Our current fave is raspberry and mint!
‘Yellow!’ said Liz, for what must have been the third or fourth time.
‘According to Jax,’ said Thelma – also for the third or fourth time. ‘A vertical yellow line, going from top to bottom, right in the middle of the wall.’
Liz frowned, shaking her head. ‘It just doesn’t make any sense.’
Her perplexed gaze roamed abstractedly round the Thirsk Garden Centre café as if seeking to draw reassurance from the summer normality. The patio doors were flung wide to the morning sunshine but most people had chosen to sit inside, out of the direct glare and intense heat. The place was bright with the pastel colours of summer T-shirts: yellow, lavender, pink, echoed by the displays in the Edinburgh Woollen Mill. Sun hats were on tables or poking out of handbags like large floppy flowers and many a reddened upper arm was in evidence. ‘Better get used toit!’ theLook Northweatherman had said only that morning. ‘This is our new normal, folks!’
‘Just because it doesn’t make any sense to us, doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason behind it,’ said Thelma calmly.
‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Pat, aiming her coral-pink handbag fan discreetly at her cleavage. ‘Just Madame Jax getting her knickers in a knot as per. There’s got to be some perfectly logical reason behind it.’
‘Such as?’ said Liz, still frowning worriedly. She could sense a sneeze brewing. This morning her head felt especially muzzy and bunged up.
‘He could have been redecorating.’ Pat’s tone was impatient, dismissive, as if men were found dead in front of painted walls every day of the week.
‘On a Friday night?’ said Thelma mildly.
‘He might have been trying out colours,’ said Pat airily, waving the fan. ‘That’s what we do – we get those little weeny pots of paint, just to see what they look like.’
‘Jax didn’t mention pots of paint or anything like that,’ said Thelma stirring her coffee. ‘Or that Nev had been wearing painting things.’
‘Anyway,’ said Liz, ‘surely the way you use those sample pots is in patches – not great big lines?’
‘Who knows what went on in Neville Hilton’s head,’ said Pat dismissively, shutting off the fan and returning it to her bag. ‘Here’s a thought – maybe he’d done that one line and the thought of all the upheaval involved caused him to – you know …’
She made a discreet but unmistakable gesture with her pastry fork.
‘Of course, we don’t know how ill Nev actually was,’ said Thelma.
‘Derek said he seemed fine at Rotary,’ said Liz. ‘But that’s Rotary.’ There was an unspoken pause as all three reflected on their experiences of all-male gatherings where it was perfectlypossible for someone to be at death’s door without exciting any particular attention.
Thelma looked at Liz. ‘What time did Derek say Nev left the Rotary meeting?’ she asked.
‘About six thirty,’ said Liz. ‘And it’d have taken him about twenty minutes or so to drive back to Hollinby.’
‘Six thirty?’ Thelma frowned. ‘Isn’t that a bit early to leave a Rotary meeting?’
‘The meeting hadn’t actually got started,’ said Liz. ‘According to Derek they were all gathering in the Wheatsheaf, and Nev got a phone call, said he had to leave and headed off.’
‘What bothers me,’ interjected Pat, ‘is why Jax Hilton-Shally wants to see us again – after strong-arming us all into going to the funeral …’
The three friends exchanged eloquent glances that said all there was to say about their ex-colleague. Back in the day Pat had nicknamed her ‘Shally’ – short for ‘Shall I leave it with you?’ During the times they’d all worked together at St Barnabus Primary School, that had been Jax’s special skill – getting others to sort out any problems that should come her way. Jammed photocopiers, unmanned playgrounds, miscreant children (especially the latter) all would all be brought to staff by Jax accompanied by a bright, conclusive ‘Shall I leave it with you?’ And now all three had a nasty feeling that the former Mrs Hilton viewed the death of her ex-husband in the same way: a problem that neededsorting. Sorting by someone other than herself.
‘And we have lift-off,’ said Pat in an undertone as the blonde ponytail appeared at the entrance to the coffee shop. ‘Get ready to Stand Firm, ladies.’
‘I’ve not heard anything more from the police.’ Jax had been sitting with them some one and a half minutes and had not even touched her coffee. Another of Jax’s traits was her ability to Cut to the Chase.
‘You were expecting to?’ said Pat.
