Page 89 of Welcome to Murder Week

ONE YEAR SINCE MURDER WEEK—JUNE

The countryside is lusher than I remembered. Through the taxi window, the bright green pastures, the bushes and trees, the whole landscape looks swollen with water, like it’s moments from spilling over. It’s succor after the dry spell at home, where I took Mr. Groberg’s advice and put in a sprinkler system so I wouldn’t have to worry that the family renting my house will forget to water.

We stop at a traffic light beside a bicycle rental shop, where a young couple is strapping a baby into the carrier on the back of a bike. They kiss the baby’s cheeks and lean over to kiss each other. It seems like a good omen, for which I’m grateful. I’m here in England without a ticket home. I’ve got my inheritance and rent from my new tenants in Buffalo, and I’ll have a small salary from a part-time job at The Book and Hook. Kim doubts I’ll be able to tolerate being an employee after owning my own business, but she was too excited about taking over the optician shop to notice that the only thing that made me sad was how easy it was to walk away. For the first time, I’m going to try to figure out what I want to do, instead of merely continuing what I’ve always done.

“Are you sure this is the place, duck?” the driver says.

We’re on the edge of a large field. I recognize the cottage from the photographs, but now it seems narrower and taller, and more like a storage barn. It has a wooden door that looks impenetrable and only one small window facing the front. It is not inviting.

The skeleton key is under the mat, as promised. The door, which is even thicker than I imagined, opens directly into the kitchen, which, despite a low ceiling and a lot of dust, is a pleasant surprise. There’s a long, sturdy wooden table, shelves stacked with old ceramic plates, two white cabinets, and a small electric stove. I can see myself making breakfast here, scrambled eggs from my own chickens, which I’ve never wanted to raise until this moment. Taped to the refrigerator, which is barely chin height, is a note from Germaine. She’s left me milk, eggs, bread and butter, bacon, apples, and coffee. In the door is a bottle of white wine.

In the sitting room, the only other room on the first floor, there’s a leather couch that’s covered with a musty wool blanket. There’s also a rocking chair, a small rickety bookshelf, and a few oversize old pillows in a wicker basket on the floor near the woodstove. Up the steep, narrow stairs is a bedroom, with a solid dresser and a mattress that doesn’t seem half bad. The windows are small, but the view over the hills couldn’t be prettier.

I’m glad I waited until June to return; it’s nice weather for getting the house and garden in shape. Amity and Wyatt have promised to come and help. She’ll be here in July for the swan census and the official opening of Hadley Hall. Wyatt, who is getting lots of work now as an audiobook narrator, has carved out a week in September to return to Derbyshire to claim his prize by playing the dead body in a Masterpiece Mystery show. He tells me he’s been practicing by doing corpse pose.

I spend the first day cleaning, throwing out moth-eaten old linensand blankets, scrubbing the tiny bathroom. Germaine comes by with more cleaning supplies and hand-me-downs—a quilt, a set of sheets, a braided rug, some towels. The second night, she brings Indian food, and we eat curry and drink beer. The next day a pickup truck pulls up to the cottage. Sally, the vicar, unloads an old bicycle with a basket for me to use until I get a car. I haven’t ventured into town yet, too nervous about what I might find.

On my fourth morning, I’m in the garden struggling to yank out a wisteria vine when the gate creaks.

“I don’t think that’s a fair fight.”

The sun gives a lustrous shine to Dev’s hair. He looks taller than I remembered.

“Fair to me or to the wisteria?”

“I was going to say to you,” Dev says, “but I can see you’re stronger than I thought. Bold of you to take on gardening.”

“Isn’t it though?”

What a fool I was.

“Wisteria is tenacious,” Dev says, rolling up his sleeves. “You have to go deep.” He reaches for my shovel. “May I?”

I step aside and watch as he digs the shovel down around the largest root. He puts his foot on the metal blade and hinges it back. He moves around the root, spearing the shovel and hinging, spearing and hinging.

“You don’t have to do this,” I say.

He pauses. “I know.”

“I’m working on getting a green thumb. See?”

He stakes the shovel in the ground and takes my hand. He flips it palm up, looks down at my fingers, touches my thumb.

“No sign of progress,” he says.

“Really? You don’t see the tinge of green?”

I don’t know if he can feel my hand tremble, but his is steady.

We work together, both gripping the wooden handle, pushing the shovel into the ground and prying the blade to coax the roots to release their hold. It’s nearly too much for me, working by his side like this. Finally, the root comes out in a knot that is bigger and heavier than I could have imagined. We drag it to the side of the garden.

“I almost forgot,” Dev says. “I have some photographs for you.” He takes an envelope from his shirt pocket. “I found them in a box in the basement—these are from the seventies, when your mum was a girl. I thought you might find them interesting, to get a sense of her life here. The one on top I’m told is your grandmother.”

“Seriously?” Does he know what a gift this is? In the photo, she looks only a little older than I am now. She’s holding a bicycle, with a basket, of course, her head thrown back in laughter. She looks tall, like me, and has thick, unruly hair, like mine. I run a finger lightly over her face. I wish I could tip her chin forward and gaze right into her eyes.

“This is amazing,” I say.

“I thought you’d like that one.”

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