Page 8 of A Village Theatre Murder

‘Tabitha?’ Hayley didn’t keep the surprise from her voice.

‘Yes,’ said Tabitha. ‘It was me. Julia and I were in charge of props and accessories and such. Roger Grave sourced the prop gun, which we kept in the store cupboard backstage along with all of the other items. Julia put it there this afternoon. I took it out of the cupboard and put the gun in Oscar’s jacket pocket before the show. Then I hung up the jacket, with the gun in its pocket, on the hatstand backstage.’

‘All right, we need proper interviews with each of you. Let’s get names and contact details, and Farmer will quickly take your fingerprints now. Tomorrow, we’ll start with Oscar and Superintendent Grave at ten. Tabitha and Julia, you next. Be at the station at eleven. We will be in touch with everyone else. Make sure DC Farmer has your details, and then you’re free to go. For now. I would prefer it if none of you leave the village without letting DC Farmer or me know.’

After having her fingerprints taken, Julia didn’t join the queue waiting to give their details to one of the officers. The Berrywick police knew full well who she was and where to find her, and besides, she’d be on their doorstep at eleven as requested. Leaving the scrum, she went backstage. Sean and Jane were where she’d left them. Jane was on her phone, speaking quietly, her face damp with tears. She had the dull, dazed look that Julia had seen on many survivors and bereaved people in her time as a social worker. When the world has changed suddenly, permanently, and horribly, it’s impossible for the brain to absorb it.

‘The police said we can all leave now,’ Julia said softly to Sean. ‘What are we going to do about Jane? Did you get hold of Hannah?’

‘Yes, eventually. Jane’s on the phone with her now. Hannah had fallen asleep with the little one and her phone was off, and the poor young woman woke to multiplemissed calls from her mum, and then this terrible news about her father.’ He shook his head. ‘Hannah was all ready to come and fetch her, but with the little baby and all, I said I’d drive Jane.’

‘That’s kind of you.’

‘It’s no trouble.’

‘Do you think you could…’ Julia hesitated. She had an aversion to being needy, and generally found it easier to give help and support than ask for it. ‘I was thinking, perhaps, you might stay over at my house?’

He put an arm around her shoulders. ‘I was thinking the same. It would be good to be together after all this shock and sadness, and tomorrow’s Sunday, so I don’t have anywhere to be. I’ll drop Jane at Hannah’s, pick up Leo from home, and come back to your place to sleep.’

‘Thank you. I would like that.’

Jane turned and caught Sean’s eye. ‘Dr O’Connor said he will give me a lift to your house,’ she said into the phone. ‘There, there. I’ll be there in a few minutes, love. There, there.’

6

Julia had anticipated an uneasy night of tossing and turning, haunted by the sight of Graham’s body, heartbroken at Jane and Hannah’s loss, troubled by the hows and whys of the terrible accident, and knocking elbows and knees with Sean with each toss and turn. Instead, she’d fallen immediately and deeply asleep, and to the best of her knowledge, hadn’t moved at all.

Sean wasn’t in bed when she woke up. She hoped she hadn’t driven him away with her snoring. Or her sleeping with her mouth open. She still hadn’t quite got used to how exposing and mildly nerve-wracking it was to take a new lover in her sixties. She and Peter had been in their twenties when they’d met, and she’d given not a moment’s thought to how she looked asleep.

She found Sean in the kitchen, whisking eggs in a bowl while keeping an eye on a serious heap of bacon that was crisping in the pan on the stove. On the counter next to him was a pile of neatly sliced tomato, and another of mushrooms, as well as a smaller pile of finely chopped chives from the garden. Sean was a precise chopper, something that Julia half-jokingly put down to his medical school experience with thescalpel, but was more likely the result of his precise personality.

‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I’m making a slap-up breakfast, a proper Sean Special. I’m starving, aren’t you?’

‘Absolutely ravenous. The Sean Special is exactly what I need.’

It had been after 10p.m. when Sean had arrived back from delivering Jane to Hannah’s house, and he and Julia had both agreed that they had neither the energy nor the appetite for even a light supper. They turned in, exhausted, as soon as Jake and Leo had settled down from their ecstatic reunion.

She flicked the kettle on. ‘I’ll make coffee. And shall I get the toast in?’

‘Yes, please. And do you think we should give the dogs their breakfast before we eat?’

‘Probably a good idea, if you don’t want your bacon ripped from your fingers. I’ll do that while the toast cooks.’

‘I’ll start cooking the eggs when you get back.’

Jake and Leo were doing their very best presentation of Two Extremely Good Boys, sitting in the doorway between the kitchen and the garden, bums on the ground, tails in restrained motion sweeping across the floor like two metronomes. Only a line of drool stretching from the side of Jake’s mouth gave away their extreme eagerness for a bit of bacon. The outside door was open despite the morning chill, to air out the bacon smell. Just beyond the doorway sat the glossy brown form of Henny Penny. She, too, would like to partake in the Sean Special, although presumably not the scrambled eggs.

Henny Penny was the Houdini of chickens, and perhaps the Einstein of chickens, too. She mysteriously managed to get out of the coop often – the other chickens could only get out if Julia opened the door for them and made clucking noises and sweeping arm gestures, or proffered delicious treats. Despite her very small head, Penny seemed to understand and obey the rulethat chickens were not welcome in the house. She and Jake had wordlessly developed an arrangement whereby they could sit together in the doorway, but she was outside, as per the rules, and he was inside, and thus in close proximity to both the hen and the bacon. Julia knew that this idea must have been Henny Penny’s brilliant solution, because – love him as she did – she recognised that Jake was certainly not strategic enough to come up with such a complex plan. Presiding over the whole scene from his place on the windowsill was Chaplin, looking snootily down his nose at the other beasts.

‘Come on then, chaps. Breakfast time.’

The dogs turned and ran into the garden, narrowly avoiding Henny Penny, who had the good sense to jump out of their way in a huff of feathers. Jake sat in front of his bowl expectantly. Julia brought another bowl for Leo, and filled them both with pellets. Jake looked mildly disappointed – he’d been hoping for bacon, after all – but didn’t let that get in the way of wolfing down his food.

Julia went back for the bowl of kitchen scraps, and tossed them into the coop for the chickens. There was plenty of grain left in the feeder, and water in the bowl. Last up, Chaplin, who got both pellets and pouches of soft luxury cat food, as well as fresh water. She’d rather spoiled him in an effort to make him feel welcome, and there was no going back now.

‘Right, everyone sorted,’ she said to Sean. ‘Toast’s ready. I’ll put another round in for something sweet after. You can cook those eggs now, I think.’

She cleared the table and set it. She put out rich farm butter, her own home-made blackberry jam, and the honey that her beekeeper neighbour, Matthew, kindly gave her a couple of times a year. ‘Half of the nectar probably comes from your flowers,’ he’d said cheerily, as he’d handed over the glowing, golden jar. She got out the milk and sugar, and put the coffee plunger on the table alongside two generouslysized coffee mugs. TheSunday Times, which Sean had picked up off the mat, lay waiting for their attention.

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