Barbara looked at her dumbly.
“Don’t bother then,” Anne said crossly. “It’s nothing to do with me anyway.” “No,” Barbara said. “I’ve got to tell someone.”
There was a movement in the hall which Barbara must have seen through the frosted glass door because she stopped. The door opened and Felicity came in. She had changed from her school uniform into pink shorts and a pink T-shirt. She was large for her age and the outfit didn’t flatter her.
“I’ve come for my tea,” she said.
“Of course, darling. I’ll put it on a tray. You can have it in front of the television.”
“I want it here with you.”
Barbara’s hands, setting the tray, started to shake. “Not today, darling. I want to talk to my friend.”
“Why can’t I talk too?”
“You can,” Barbara said. Anne thought she was showing remarkable restraint. “But not today. Here, I’ll carry it into the living room for you.”
They looked at each other for a moment. Felicity seemed to consider putting up a fight but thought better of it. She scowled and followed her mother from the room.
When Barbara returned to the kitchen the impulse to confide in Anne seemed to have passed. Anne wondered irrationally if the child had some evil influence over her. She poured tea, urged Anne to eat, as if the earlier outburst had never occurred.
“You were talking about Neville,” Anne said. “I don’t understand why he’s so committed to the project. What can he hope to get out of it?”
“Money, of course. That’s obvious. That’s why he left the Fulwells because Godfrey offered him a financial incentive. He’s easily bought.” The answer came readily but Anne thought there must be more to it than that.
“Does he need money that much?”
Barbara seemed confused by the question.
“Did you know that he’s talking about resigning from his job at Slateburn?” Anne said. She thought Barbara might be pleased by the information. Didn’t she want Godfrey out of Neville’s clutches? But it seemed to disturb her further.
“No! Where will he go?”
“He’s planning to take over Black Law farm.” “Godfrey never said.”
“Perhaps Godfrey doesn’t know.”
“How did you know?” Anne paused. “We have a mutual friend.”
Barbara was thrown into panic. “You won’t tell Neville that you’ve been here? That I asked to see you?”
“Of course not.”
But Barbara was almost hysterical. “I invited you because I wanted to ask you something specific. Now I don’t know that I can. If you’re a friend of Neville’s.”
“I’m not a friend of Neville’s.” God, Anne thought. Let me out of here. The sun had moved so it no longer shone directly into the kitchen but she felt as if she’d been locked up in the room all day.
“I can trust you, can’t I?”
“Of course you can.” Apart from the fact that I’ve slept with your husband and I’d shack up with him tomorrow if he gave me half a chance.
“The three of you working on the report, living together in the cottage. You must have been very close.”
“I don’t know,” Anne answered lightly. She had no idea where the conversation was leading. “When you’re living and working on top of each other like that it’s important to keep your privacy.”
“But the girl who died, you would have known where she went, who she saw?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Did she ever meet Neville Furness?”
“Not that I knew. Why?”
Barbara didn’t answer.
“What are you saying? That Grace and Neville had a relationship?”
Although there was a dishwasher under the bench Barbara left the table and filled the sink with hot, soapy water. Anne waited for a reply but Barbara was giving all her attention to the cups and plates.
Anne stood behind her. “Do you suspect Neville Furness of killing Grace?”
Barbara rubbed the dishcloth hard inside a cup. Although it must have been clean she didn’t lift it onto the draining board. She stood up to her elbows in suds.
“If you have any evidence that’s what happened you must go to the police. The detective in charge of the case is a woman, Vera Stanhope.
She’s very sympathetic. If you like, I’ll come with you.”
And how will I ever explain that one away if Godfrey and I get together, she thought.
“Barbara, are you listening to me?”
But if Barbara was listening she wasn’t answering. Felicity came in with her tray. Barbara, shaking the soap from her hands, turned round from the sink and said in her normal, mumsy voice, “Could you show Mrs. Preece out, darling? It’s time for her to go and as you can see I’m rather busy.”
Anne didn’t put up any resistance. She hoped never to see Barbara Waugh again.
Chapter Fifty.
The birthday bash for Olivia Fulwell’s youngest child was a cross between a church fete and an old-fashioned street party. As Jeremy had suspected, everyone and his dog was there. Anne wasn’t sure of the age of the child or even whether it was a boy or a girl. Whenever she’d seen it, it had been wrapped up in androgynous jumpsuits.
As they prepared to set off for the party Jeremy worked himself into quite a state. Through his antique dealer friend in Morpeth he thought he had found the perfect gift a jack-in-the-box with a grotesque carved head which sprang out of the box with a squeal. “Not terribly expensive,” he told Anne, looking up from the floor where he squatted amidst wrapping paper, ribbon and sellotape. “But classy, don’t you think? Better than the modern tat kids get given. Something that’ll stand out. But what’ll I put on the label? Are you sure you can’t remember the brat’s name?”
“Positive.” As if she cared anyway. The last thing she wanted to do was to put on a frock and make small talk to the in-bred representatives of the local aristocracy. And it had occurred to her that Barbara and Godfrey might have been invited. She wasn’t sure how she’d handle that. “Just put from Jeremy and Anne.”
“I suppose I’ll have to,” he said. Then, wistfully, “Do you think love from Jeremy and Anne would be a bit OTT?” He loved dressing up on occasions like these. His clothes, immaculately pressed, had been laid out on his bed hours before.
The whole event was set up outside. Even the toilets discreetly signposted were in the stable block so none of the local riffraff would actually have to set foot in the house. Anne thought that Olivia had been lucky with the weather. Soon it would break. Pale, sulphurous clouds drifted occasionally across the sun. It was very hot and humid.
The forecast had mentioned thunder.
The children sat at a long trestle-table covered with a paper cloth.
They wore party hats. There must have been crackers because they all had blowers and whistles which made a noise. All the play group were there which seemed terribly democratic, though as far as Anne could tell only two of the parents had been invited. One was a teacher and the other the wife of a tenant farmer. The children ate sausages, crisps and vivid orange jellies made in waxed paper dishes. The parent who was a teacher, a dowdy woman with hair already grey and flat shoes, hovered behind her offspring, muttering occasionally to no one in particular about BSE and E numbers. The child, apparently unused to such unlimited amounts of chemicals and sugar, ate ravenously, oblivious to her mother and the friends who tried to talk to her.
In the middle of the table was the cake, made in the shape of a character from the latest children’s cult
TV show and covered in violet icing. The name LIZZY had been picked out in Smarties. So, Anne thought, that solved the mystery of the child’s gender.
For the adults there were other trestles with a buffet and a bar. The food was standard catering fare no doubt Jeremy would he sniffy about it later. Around the park were dotted sideshows which would keep the children entertained so the adults could continue to chat and drink in peace an inflatable bouncy castle, a roundabout of galloping horses powered by its own generator, a man who swallowed swords and ate fire.