Page 77 of The Venice Murders

A few days later, on a Sunday morning, the blinds of the Nook remained down, a firm signal that for most of the village the café was closed. Inside, however, was a hive of activity. Tony had been baking most of the previous day as a welcome home to the honeymooners and now the friends, missing only Sally, were gathered around one of the Nook’s largest tables enjoying an afternoon tea: sandwiches of ham and mustard and cheese and pickle, and an army of cakes to satisfy even the greediest appetite. A fat Swiss roll filled one plate while cherry and almond tarts, maids of honour and fondant fancies spilled across others.

This was a working day for Alice and, later that afternoon, she was due back at the Priory to supervise the four-course dinner the hotel would be serving its guests. But for now, she was happily making her way through the cake selection.

‘Your fancies have come on a lot, Tony,’ she said bestowing her blessing on a lemon and lavender fondant. ‘You always had a bit of a problem with them, if I remember, but these are good.’

He accepted the praise with a smile. ‘Thank you, Alice, nice to know. Though they’re never likely to equal yours.’

‘True enough, but it’s good to keep tryin’,’ she said graciously, taking another large bite of fondant.

Jack, sitting beside his wife, gave her leg a surreptitious nudge. ‘We’re home, for sure,’ he said under his breath.

Flora’s response was a grin. Theywerehome and no matter how wonderful Venice had been, she was happy to be back in Abbeymead. Tomorrow, she would walk into the All’s Well and once again take charge of her precious bookshop. Rose had done a sterling job in her absence – that had been universally agreed around the table – but nothing, Flora knew, was going to satisfy until she’d wandered through her shop, from latticed windows to the final bookcase, and personally checked that everything was just as it should be.

‘Did you know that Finch man is selling up?’ Alice asked, pouring them a second round of teas.

‘Really?’ Flora was surprised. ‘But he’s only been here a few years.’ And was still ‘that Finch man’ to the natives, she thought, amused.

Ambrose Finch had bought the old schoolhouse and its adjoining cottage from Miss Howden, who for many years had been housekeeper there. Minnie had inherited the large house and garden when her employer, a man Flora had liked enormously, had met a violent death. It had been a surprise legacy and, rather than keeping an expensive house going in Abbeymead, albeit one that had been beautifully modernised, Minnie had decided she’d prefer to move to a cottage in the neighbouring county. Her brother, with a permanent home in Surrey, had been keen that she joined him.

‘Village life is probably too quiet,’ Kate suggested. ‘Wasn’t Mr Finch in a high-powered job before he retired?’

Tony nodded. ‘He was, worked in the City – in finance,’ he said knowledgeably. ‘I had a long chat with him once, when he asked the Nook to cater for his sixtieth. You remember, Katie?’ he asked his wife. ‘Anyways, he said then that he missed the cut and thrust of the world he’d left behind. Maybe he’ll go back to it. He still looks pretty sprightly.’

There was a mutter from Alice. ‘He must be mad even to think of going back. What I wouldn’t give to retire!’

‘Nothing,’ Flora said, laughing. ‘You’d give nothing. You’d be so bored you’d become your own meals on wheels, cooking for the whole village.’

‘Do you know how much he’s asking for the house?’ Jack asked, his tone light.

‘Thinking of buying, then?’ Tony pulled a face. ‘Unless your books are being filmed by a Hollywood studio, Jack, I reckon it will be way too expensive.’

Flora gave her husband a sharp glance. The schoolhouse would certainly be expensive to buy, and why think of moving when they had a perfectly nice home in the cottage Aunt Violet had left her?

‘I expect he’ll want a fair sum,’ Jack said amicably. ‘I guess you have to pay for space.’

Which, of course, is what the cottage hasn’t, Flora added silently.

‘Mebbe you should find out from the Finch chap. You’ll be needing more room with all them babies to come!’

Tony was teasing and Alice laughing, but Jack wasn’t, Flora noticed, and felt her stomach flip. Though he was godfather to the Faradays’ baby daughter, Jack had never expressed any interest in becoming a father himself. She looked hard at him – had he changed his mind?

The possibility of a baby had never really been discussed. On the rare occasion the subject had hovered in the background, it had been brushed aside, passed over for a safer topic. As a small girl, Flora had been left an orphan, her mother’s pregnancy indirectly to blame for the loss of both her parents. If her father hadn’t urgently needed to get his wife and Flora’s unborn sibling to a hospital in what had been dreadful weather, dangerous weather, the car crash would never have happened and she would have grown up in a family of her own. She had never quite managed to lose the fear, the hurt, the sense of abandonment. And Jack knew it.

‘Beware babies, whatever you do!’ Tony was still in joking mood. ‘Sarah might be over her colic but now she’s found her throwing arm. Nothing stays in the cot or the pram for more than five minutes and then she bawls because all her toys are gone. The bending I’ve had to do! I’ve joints creaking like an eighty-year-old’s. But thank the Lord for Ivy – she never seems to tire of the game.’

‘Perhaps the chap who’s renting Overlay House might be interested,’ Flora suggested. ‘In buying, I mean. The schoolhouse is right in the middle of the village and if he really is a spy…’ It was time for her to do some teasing.

‘That’s my niece talkin’, I suppose,’ Alice said crossly. ‘I never suggested to Sal that he was a spy, just that there was somethin’ odd about him.’

‘Because he doesn’t work?’ Jack helped himself to a second fairy cake.

‘Well, that, among other things. He can’t be more than fifty and there he is lyin’ about all day. By all accounts, he hardly ever comes into the village, has most of his groceries delivered, and does nothin’ to the garden either. I walked that way last weekend and I’m sorry to say, Jack, it looked one big mess.’

‘Who’s the spy now?’ Tony asked, then seeing Alice’s expression, must have wished he hadn’t. ‘Perhaps the man has money.’

‘That’s the point. If you’ve got money, why would you rent that rundown house?’

‘Please, Alice, you’re hurting my feelings,’ Jack protested.

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