“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” the woman said quickly, although the two red dots on her cheeks suggested otherwise.
“We should leave you in peace,” Nova said. “We just wanted to come and say how sorry we are for your loss, but we’ll be going now.”
She grabbed Phyllis’s arm and began to pull her back before she could say anything else. Nova expected Arthur to turn around and join them, but instead he bowed his head.
“I’m very sorry, too, Mrs. Watkins. I didn’t know your husband well, but he seemed like a good’un.”
His voice was low and respectful, and Nova saw the woman’s expression change.
“I beg your pardon?”
“My wife, Esi, always says that anyone who loves books can’t be a bad person, so I’m sure your husband was a fine man. I’m only sorry I didn’t get to know him better before he passed.”
The woman stared at Arthur for a moment, and then she threw back her head and let out a loud bark of laughter.
“My God, you thinkMichael’sdead?”
“Isn’t he?”
“No, he’s very much alive. Although if he turns up at your book club, you can tell him that Cynthia says if I ever see him again, I’ll kill him myself!”
Nova was too shocked to speak and even Phyllis seemed to have been stunned into silence. Only Arthur managed to find his voice.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. Someone saw a body being taken away from here yesterday and we thought it was Michael’s.”
“No, that was his mother, God rest her soul. I was the one who found her when I came back from staying at my sister’s yesterdaymorning.” The woman, Cynthia, visibly shivered as she said the words.
“Oh dear, how awful for you,” Phyllis said, regaining her strange, quivering voice. “That must have been a terrible shock for you and for Michael. Would you be able to give us his phone number, by the way? Only we think he might have taken something when he left the book club on Wednesday, and we’re very keen to get it back.”
“I can give you his number, but it won’t do you any good. If the police’s theory is correct then Michael, and whatever it is you want back, will be long gone by now.”
“What do you mean the police’s theory?” Nova asked.
For a moment Cynthia didn’t speak, and Nova could see her weighing something up. Then she sighed and lowered her voice. “I might as well tell you, seeing as word’s bound to get out sooner or later. The police think Michael’s mum was murdered. I found her body at the bottom of the stairs, and from the way she was lying, they think she was pushed.”
“Oh, dear God, how awful!” Arthur said.
“Do they have any idea who killed her?” Phyllis asked.
Cynthia leaned closer to them, dropping her voice even further. “They think it was Michael.”
“What!” Arthur said with a gasp. “But that’s rubbish, surely? He didn’t strike me as the murdering sort.”
“That’s what I told the police. But he was overheard arguing with Eve before she died, and he has been behaving strangely recently. I’m sorry but could you please control your dog?”
Nova looked down to see Craddock humping a garden gnome.
“So Michael’s run away?” Phyllis said, pulling back on the lead.
“He was seen driving away from the house around the time the police think Eve was killed, and he’s not been seen since. Althoughby the sounds of things, he came to your book club before he disappeared.” Cynthia stopped as a thought occurred to her. “Isshein your book club? Is that why he came?”
“Who?”
“Thatwoman.” Cynthia’s voice was thick with vitriol. “He thinks I don’t know, but of course I do: the hushed phone calls, the money gone from our bank account, all those evenings he came home late with no decent explanation of where he’d been.” Her eyes flicked to Nova. “It’s not you, is it?”
“Of course not!”
“I suppose you’re not really his type. I wondered if it might be Wendy, the barmaid from the golf club. She’s in her fifties, big breasts, very stupid. Is she in your book club?”
