‘I’m not going to argue with you, Mrs Winslow.’ Lynda sniffed. ‘But I’m warning you. I’ve spoken to my husband and he wants you to understand something.’ She jabbed at the older woman with a finger topped by a long and brilliantly coloured nail. ‘If your animal strays into our garden one more time, I’m going to ask him to deal with it.’
May stood her ground, scowling at the younger woman. ‘I’m not going to be bullied by you or your husband, Mrs Kenworthy!’
But the other woman was already leaving. As she turned, she dropped the bag so that it landed at May’s feet. May stood still for a moment, then leaned down, picked it up and went back into the house.
Phyllis was standing on the other side of the door, cradling the French bulldog in her arms. She had heard the entire exchange. ‘What a horrible woman!’ she exclaimed.
The dog gazed mournfully at the door, as if in agreement.
‘I really don’t think we need to worry about her,’ May said. ‘We can talk about it this evening. That’s the whole point of the meeting. To clear the air. The trouble with the Kenworthys is that even though they’ve been here for more than six months, they’re still behaving as if they’re new to the close and haven’t learned how to fit in with our ways.’
‘It’s been seven months.’ Phyllis scowled.
‘You’ve been counting! Well, I’m sure it will all sort itself out somehow.’ May walked purposefully into the kitchen and added the bag to the general rubbish. ‘We ought to be on our way,’ she said, reaching for the bright red beret she liked to wear when she went out and positioning it carefully on her head. ‘Could you bring the almond slices, dear? We don’t want to be late!’
Ten minutes later, the two women were standing at the bus stop, waiting for the number 65, which would take them into Richmond. Despite their age, they were still working, running a small business that May also owned.
The Tea Cosy was a bookshop with a café attached, although given that the space was divided fifty-fifty between the two, it could just as easily have been the other way round. It specialised in detective stories – but only those that belonged to the so-called Golden Age of Crime or modern novels that reimagined it. So, in conversation, the two women would fondly refer to ‘Peter’ or ‘Adela’ or ‘Albert’ in such a way that an eavesdropper might think they were referring to a friend or a regular customer when in fact they meant Lord Peter Wimsey, Mrs Bradley or Albert Campion, all fictional detectives whose adventures they sold either in antiquarian editions or in new, retro paperbacks put out by British Library Crime Classics. They did not stock any modern, violent crime novels, especially ones that contained bad language. A casual reader looking for Harlan Coben, Stieg Larsson, Ian Rankin or even James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice) would have to continue down the hill to Waterstones at the corner. What they specialised in – exclusively – was cosy crime.
They also stocked a range of gifts that were all crime-related, including the Agatha Christie tea towel May had used to wipe her hands. Other novelties included a Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass, Midsomer Murders mugs and T-shirts, Cluedo jigsaw puzzles and a box of assorted chocolates marked ‘POISONED’, a tribute to the great novel by Anthony Berkeley.
They should have gone bankrupt long ago, but for some reason they continued to scrape by. The books were at the back, packed into floor-to-ceiling oak shelves with the different authors and categories divided by potted plants. The gift section was at the front of the shop on half a dozen tables close to the entrance. There were several different varieties of tea and coffee on offer, along with an assortment of cakes and pastries that Phyllis cooked fresh every day. Her blood orange sponge was probably the most violent object in the entire place.
Ellery went with them. He seldom left their side. And that was how they would spend the rest of the day, May and Phyllis bustling about, chatting to whichever customers happened to look in, Ellery asleep in his special basket, surrounded by books.
An English Murder. The Nursing Home Murder. Murder Must Advertise. Sleeping Murder.
Murder was all around them.
5
Standing in his bedroom on the first floor of Woodlands, Roderick Browne had heard the entire exchange between May Winslow and Lynda Kenworthy. It was a warm summer morning in early June and the window was open. If he had leaned out, he would have been able to see them, albeit at an oblique angle, but he would never have considered doing such a thing. Lynda Kenworthy made him feel nervous. She reminded him of the matron at the prep school where he had spent five unhappy years, racked by a sense of inferiority and relentlessly teased by the other boys. Unlike Brenda Forbes (who had exhibited a textbook case of diastema, an unsightly gap between her two front teeth – an open invitation to plaque and quite possibly an indication of serious gum disease), Lynda had a perfect smile. But the two women were equally menacing, one patrolling the corridors after lights out, the other casting a malign presence over day-to-day life in Riverview Close.
May Winslow and Phyllis Moore were quite different. Although twice its size, Roderick’s house was attached to theirs, the two front doors only a few steps apart, so they encountered each other often. They had a friendly, smiling, easy relationship, although they weren’t what he would have called friends. The only time he ever went into The Gables was when something was wrong: once when all the lights had inexplicably fused, once to help relight the Aga, and again to remove a quite remarkably large spider from their bath. On all these occasions, the ladies had reciprocated with homemade jars of lemon curd or jam, paperback novels and crime-related souvenirs, left on his doorstep with a ribbon and a handwritten thank-you card.
It wasn’t just that they were so much older than him. They seemed to be quite nervous of the outside world. Roderick couldn’t help noticing that they seldom received any post and what letters did come their way, he suspected, were bills or circulars. He had never seen any visitors arrive at their door. He knew that they ran their weird little bookshop in Richmond, although he had never shopped there. He had no interest in crime fiction and tried not to eat sugar or carbohydrates, since why would he want to give Treponema denticola or Streptococcus mutans a free lunch? There were occasions, however, when he had picked up the two ladies in his Skoda Octavia because it was raining, pausing at the bus stop and taking them where they wanted to go.
He had tried to learn a little more about them on these brief journeys, but, as grateful as they were, they were also quite reluctant to talk too much about themselves. He knew they had both been married, that they weren’t related, that May had a son living in the USA and that Phyllis was childless. May had grown up less than half a mile away. Phyllis had come from Stourbridge, on the edge of Birmingham. The most remarkable thing about them was that they had both taken holy orders, which was how they had met. They had been Franciscan sisters in the Convent of St Clare in Leeds but had left when May inherited money from a distant relative. That was when they had moved to Riverview Close. The Gables had been the first house to be sold.
Riverview Lodge had been the last to change hands. Making sure he couldn’t be seen from the other side of the glass, Roderick Browne watched Lynda Kenworthy disappear through her front door, then he stepped away and continued getting dressed. He always wore a suit to work, even though he would change into white scrubs as soon as he arrived at the clinic in Cadogan Square. He owned the practice and it was important to make a good impression on his staff: the two receptionists, the oral hygienists, the assistant dentists. He was, after all, ‘the Dentist to the Stars’. That was what he had been called in the Evening Standard diary and he still liked to play the part. He did indeed have several well-known actors, a major pop singer and two bestselling authors among his clients, and although many people might not find anything particularly glamorous about dental medicine, he strongly disagreed. He loved his work, helping people and making them healthier. It was all he had ever wanted to do.