The Spring Cleaning Murders (18 page)

“I wonder?”

“About what?”

“If he meant to drown himself.” The rain was thinning out and it was now possible to see the table and chair where he’d sat making his solitary birthday meal. Ben started to speak, but before he got out half a word, Tom Tingle’s eyes opened and he spoke either to us or some vision inside his head.

“It was an accident But how can a halfway decent man live with that?”

On the following Thursday Freddy showed up early in the afternoon and stayed to watch me mix up a batch of furniture polish from the instructions in Abigail’s little book. Eager for validation, I bragged about having made some silver polish the day before, at the prospect of which my cousin looked suitably awed. Had I, he inquired, thought of mass-producing an entire line of housecleaning products? And if so could he please be the one to start selling door to door? Such enthusiasm warmed my heart. I actually liked his idea until I thought about turning the kitchen into a one-woman factory. No hope of Freddy, however enthusiastic a salesman, agreeing to do part of the menial work.

He did offer to eat a slice of the chocolate cake left over from an ill-fated picnic. In fact he had two slices, saying it would be negligent to let it go to waste. Scratching his beard, he looked at me in what I’m sure he considered a meaningful way.

“I haven’t forgotten,” I assured him, swallowing my last mouthful of cake, “about going to see Dr. Solomon about Jonas.”

“When’s he due back from his holiday, coz?”

“Today. But I thought I’d go tomorrow morning when the twins are in play school.”

“Bad idea. Doesn’t do to procrastinate.” Freddy ambled over to the refrigerator to stand with the door open, peering inside with all the intensity of an anthropologist studying culture as evinced by an igloo. Finally, before his nose got frost-bitten off his face, he took out a bottle of milk and the makings of a ham sandwich and unloaded these spoils on the table. “You see,” he said cheerfully, “you can take yourself off, Ellie, without fear I will starve to death in your absence.”

“You just had half a cake,” I reminded him.

“Did I?” He was busily unwrapping the sliced ham and squeezing the bread to make sure it was fresh. “As I was just saying, Ellie, procrastination is a bad thing. Always get a head start, that’s my motto.” Should I take his advice and go along to Dr. Solomon’s surgery now? But I hated leaving the kitchen such a shambles. Besides, I didn’t like the idea of leaving my polish-making paraphernalia sitting out where the children could get hold of it.

“Go,” urged Freddy through a mouthful of sandwich. “I’ll clean up this mess before the twins get up from their naps. Take all the time you want. As Mrs. Malloy was fond of saying, I only charge by the hour.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” I said, “about there being no rush, I’ll take Jonas’s mirror to be repaired and return Brigadier Lester-Smith’s raincoat. I really do need to get Ben’s coat back.” I was getting into mine as I spoke and taking a scarf from a hook in the alcove to put in my pocket.

“Don’t forget your handbag.” Freddy tucked it under my arm after I had collected both mirror and raincoat, then ushered me out the door as if I had come trying to sell my furniture polish. “And remember don’t stint yourself on time. I can survive on what you have in the house at least until tomorrow morning.”

“Don’t forget the children and Jonas.” I kissed his fuzzy cheek. “They’ll need something to eat when they get up from their naps.”

“Never fear, Freddy’s here!” He waved me off, eager to return to his mid-afternoon snack, and I headed for the old convertible. It was a little chilly, but the skies looked innocent enough. I set off, but instead of turning towards the village on exiting our gateway, the car turned as if of its own volition in the direction of Bellkiek, as we had done on the day of the picnic.

I had thought a lot about Tom Tingle in the last few days. What had he meant in saying “It was an accident?” Ben thought Tom must have been speaking about putting both their lives in danger. But I wasn’t convinced.

Within seconds Tom had been on his feet, apologizing in a shamefaced voice for making a nuisance of himself, thanking Ben for the rescue, and insisting he could make it back to his house on his own. He did not explain why he had gone into the sea with his clothes on. When we insisted on seeing him to his house, he turned the handle of the unlocked front door, bobbed us a nod, and went inside without even asking Ben if he would like to dry off.

It wasn’t until the children and Jonas were in bed that Ben and I talked about the incident. And I posed the question, was it possible Tom had been talking about Mrs. Large? Did he believe himself responsible for her death? Had he perhaps opened the study door at Tall Chimneys and knocked the poor woman off her ladder? Was he consumed with guilt that he hadn’t seen that a doctor was fetched? Or confessed his involvement to the police? Ben had told me I was letting my imagination run riot. At which point he had sneezed. Whereupon I decided one should always think first of the living.

Which in this case meant feeling my husband’s forehead to make sure he didn’t have a temperature. Then making him another cup of cocoa before insisting he get between warm bedclothes and have a good night’s sleep.

But I had continued to worry about Tom Tingle. Suppose his entering the water had been an attempt at suicide? And he tried again? The thought turned my legs wobbly as I now drove towards his house. There was no blaming Ben. Men don’t think like women. They’re much more inclined to take a man at his word when he says that nothing’s wrong. Real men don’t read each other’s minds. They consider it an invasion of privacy. But there was no excuse where I was concerned. Driving along The Cliff Road I wondered how I’d been able to go about my own life without returning sooner to make sure Tom Tingle was still among the living.

My less-than-courageous answer came back pretty quickly. If he had, however accidentally, killed Mrs. Large, he might be completely irrational when wondering just how much he had blabbed down on the beach. And I had no desire to encourage him in the belief that the fewer people who knew his secret the better.

I could now see his house. Its warm red brick was certainly hospitable-looking. Would its owner slam the door in my face when I came knocking? My knees did a bit of that as I parked where the drive divided into two arms encircling a small lawn in front of the house steps. Next to the bell was a sign that read “Out of Order.” So it had to be the knocker.

I rapped once—tentatively, as if flapping a leaf against a tree trunk. Realizing I could stand there all day at that rate, I got up the nerve to try again. I still didn’t make much of a bang, but presumably Tom had ears like a cat. He immediately opened the door. He looked dubious, but I announced firmly that I had come to see how he was doing while putting my foot in the door like someone selling floor polish. And after a moment’s hesitation he invited me to come in.

“Did I catch you in the middle of making dinner?” I asked, noticing as we stood in the wide hall that he was wearing an apron wrapped around his middle and that his hands were floury.

“I was just finishing up a steak and kidney pudding,” he said. “If you mean to stay more than a minute or two, we’d best head for the kitchen. I’m not the best cook in the world. But I know how to read a recipe, and this one calls for steaming over gently boiling water at least three hours. So I’ve got to look sharpish if I want to eat before seven.”

He led the way down the wide hall. Its carpet was shabby, the wallpaper needed replacing, but the windows on the staircase wall let in floods of light, and I imagined how handsome it might look if redecorated. We passed a couple of open doors on our way to the kitchen. One gave a glimpse of the dining room and the other of a book-lined study. The furniture looked old and there was a faintly musty smell. Even so, my heart warmed to the place. The quirky contours of the rooms and the sunlight twinkling on wainscotted walls already mellowed with age gave a sense of a house where people had once been happy and might be again. What was needed was cooperation from Tom.

When we entered the kitchen, my hopes rose on his behalf. Surely no one could have made such a floury mess preparing one steak and kidney pudding without getting some enjoyment out of the process. The old pine table was covered with a jumble of what seemed to be the entire contents of the pantry, fridge, and utensils drawer.

There were milk bottles—one full, the other almost empty—onion scraps, Oxo cubes, an empty suet packet, chunks of raw meat—all having been caught off guard in a dry blizzard. Little wonder the pudding basin and rolling pin looked as though they didn’t have a clue where to start. But luckily, their lord and master did not appear to be at a loss.

As I hovered across from him, Tom gave another twist to his rolled-up sleeves and got busy kneading the sticky mass in the mixing bowl he had unearthed from under a floury tea towel. If he didn’t look as expert at the job as Ben, he lost no points in letting his ingredients know who was boss.

“You look well,” I told him.

“I’m jogging along.” He picked up the overturned bag of flour, scattered more of its contents, slapped down the suet pastry, divided this in two, and rolled the larger piece into a circle. “But I suppose you’re referring to my dip in the sea the other day.” His face reddened. “It was awfully good of your husband to come in after me. I’m very appreciative, but there was no need for you to come all the way over here. I didn’t catch a deathly chill. And I hope your husband suffered no unpleasant repercussions.” Tom had lined the pudding basin with pastry and now dumped in the meat and chopped onion. “I know I should have got in touch, but I’m afraid I allowed my embarrassment to get in the way of good manners.”

“What”—I had to ask the question—”made you go into the sea with your clothes on?”

He finally looked at me. “Good gracious! You’ve been thinking I was trying to kill myself. Yes, I can see how you could have got that idea. It wasn’t much fun having a birthday party by myself; but I promise you, Mrs. Haskell, that you have got the wrong end of the stick. I plowed out into that icy water to save the life of another, not to end mine.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I heard someone scream and—”

“Oh, goodness!” I had to sit down. “I’ll bet that was me when I almost tripped going back up the cliff. But you thought someone was drowning.”

“I’m not very good at locating sound.” Tom stood like a flour-covered gnome waiting to be dusted off and put back in the perennial border. Besides which, I”—picking up his pudding and taking it over to the steamer—”I may have been overly eager to charge to the rescue and perform deeds of daring-do. The fact that I can’t swim more than a few strokes didn’t seem important until I was out of my depth and going down for the third time.”

“I think you behaved very nobly,” I said, “but there’s still something puzzling me.”

“What?”

“It’s not important.” Suddenly I was feeling like an impertinent fool.

“Obviously it is.” Tom turned from the cooker to fix me with surprisingly shrewd eyes.

“Well, it’s just that you said something immediately after Ben got you out of the water . . . that... it was an accident, but that didn’t make it easy for a man of conscience to live with.”

“And you thought I was trying to make excuses for my silly behaviour that put your husband in danger?” Tom sat down across from me and put his floury hands on his knees and I couldn’t bring myself to mention Mrs. Large. “All I can think”—he studied the mess on the table—"is that my life must still have been flashing before me, and I was remembering an incident from my schoolboy days.”

“Yes?” I prompted.

“It was when I was in the fourth form. We were playing cricket and I was at bat. Bill Struthers—I think that was his name—bowled a fast ball that I actually managed to hit and it went for six. Or it would have done if it hadn’t caught the headmaster on the head just as he peeked over the fence to see how we were doing. He got a nasty concussion and my parents, both keen sporting types, were mortified.”

The story rang true, especially when I remembered Tom telling Sir Robert Pomeroy at the Hearthside Guild meeting that he disliked sports. It simplified things for my conscience where Mrs. Large was concerned. Also there was something about Tom that touched me. I found myself thinking about that old picture book, the one I had found in the attic about the wicked gnomes who had holed up in the old lady’s rockery. Maybe if I had read it to the end, I would have discovered the little men were unhappy at being dug up all the time and the old lady was a fiend with a hoe.

“You have a beautiful garden,” I told Tom, as I drank the cup of tea he poured for me. “Have you done much to it since you moved in?”

“Things are the way I found them.” He got up to refill the pot. “I always lived in a flat with not so much as a window box to fill with geraniums. But the garden was the main reason I bought this house, and now spring’s here, I’d like to get my hands in the earth. Trouble is, I don’t know where to start. I could be pulling up plants thinking they’re weeds.”

“You should come and talk to Jonas—he’s the original green thumb,” I said. “Really, you’d be doing him a favor, because he can’t work much in the garden anymore and he misses it.”

“And you must miss having a gardener,” Tom replied.

“Oh, Jonas is much more than that to our family.” I drank the last drops of my tea and stood up. “What we mind is that he seems to be failing. That’s why I’d better get moving. I’m going to see his doctor. To find out what can be done to help him.”

“I see.” Tom removed his apron and took me back through the hall to the front door. “Perhaps I’ll stop by at Merlin’s Court sometime. I could bring some books of wallpaper with me, seeing I’ve heard you’re in the decorating business and I could use some advice so as not to make things look worse rather than better.”