“More house.”
“Am I allowed to see it?”
I sighed. “It’s just the bedrooms and the loo.”
“Good. Busting for a whizz. Had way too much coffee this morning.”
So, we went upstairs. He poked his nose in my bedroom, and I made sure the visit was brief. I pointed at the bathroom and said I’d wait in the lounge.
When he came down, I handed him Kenny’s lead. “Consider this your workout for the day.”
He seemed amiable enough, and so we made our way outside and started down the lane. Ollie pointed at the field to our left. “Is that the path you can cut through to the village?”
I nodded.
“We don’t take that because it’s where …”
“Yes.”
“Understood.”
A few months earlier, just a week after moving here, I had found the body of a barmaid, Arabella Sweet, near the pub. Her murder was pinned on her boyfriend. But itwas my new boyfriend, Tarquin, who had killed her. Then he tried to kill me and another person when we figured it out. I tried not to think about it.
I thought for a second. “Sorry, I’m being a mardy git. You’ve caught me in a mood.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ollie said, lying, as he strained to keep Kenny from running off. “I assumed you’d be in an odd mood with me for just turning up and … the last few months.”
“It’s okay,” I said. More needed to be said, but I couldn’t face it.
He smiled at me in that way that spoke of unconditional love, so I quickly turned away from him and started pointing out local landmarks. “Church, pub, old manor house – Honningtons, home to Lady Georgiana Frobisher,” I said. There weren’t a lot of other landmarks.
Ollie nodded away as I nattered to distract myself, and we made our way into the village. I felt a shiver go down my spine as we neared the pub. I had been here once since I’d found Arabella’s body.
“You alright?” he said, as once more Kennedy tried his best to strangle himself with his lead as he took in every smell around him.
“Yup.” I pushed open the door to the pub. Inside, it was dead. Well, not completely, but there was a grand total of one other customer. An old man with a copy of theDaily Expresssat in the corner with a Guinness.
In front of me, though, was Cytrine Hughes, the landlady of the Fox and Lamprey. She was a large French Caribbean woman who wore bangles and a lot of leopard print. “Arden!” she said in surprise and stopped wiping down the bar. “Goodness, me.” She dropped the cloth she’d been using and came around with her arms open wide. “It’s been too long.” She gave me a bear hug, which I awkwardly received.
“And who’s this?” she asked, meaning Kennedy.
“This is my rescue mutt, Kenny.”
“Ah, yes, Rita mentioned,” she said. “I’ll get him a bowl of water.” She stood up from where she’d crouched down to give him a scratch behind the ears.
“Cytrine, this is my friend, Ollie, from London. He’s visiting.”
“Lovely to meet you,” said Cytrine, and they shook hands. “I thought you were never going to come and visit us ever again, Arden,” she added, turning back to me.
“Oh, you know …” I mumbled. “Where’s Alan?”
Her face darkened. “At the bottom ofLa Manche, for all I care. That lying, cheating, no good— Twenty-five years of my life I wasted on that man! And all the time …” She caught herself and took a deep breath. “Excuse me. I mean, Alan and I have agreed to separate. And the brewery has let me take over the licence of the pub as sole operator. They warned me this is my last chance after … you know, but I assured them it’d be fine; that the pub would make more money than ever now that he wasn’t here drinking half the profits when he should be working.”
She beamed at us. “Sounds great, congratulations,” I said.
Her smile widened. “Go outside and find a table, everyone’s out back in the garden enjoying this very non-English weather. Two pints, I assume?”
We made our way outside, where half the village was congregated. All but a couple of tables had a family or a group around them. Ollie burst out laughing. “So, this is where everyone is. Out boozing. When they say it’s five o’clock somewhere, they clearly mean here.”
