Close to Death

‘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.