Page 69 of Murder in the Winter Woods
‘I didn’t tell him what Lewis did to me. I couldn’t talk about it. I was sad and lonely. And angry with Lewis, with Matthew, with myself. I hardly went out. Lewis was living in the village, walking around cheerful as you please, as if nothing had ever happened. I didn’t want to see him. I couldn’t be a normal person any more. Matthew didn’t understand. He never even asked me about that night. He should have known that something was wrong. Soon after we got home, he broke up with me. He said I had changed, and asked me why. But I couldn’t tell him. I made him cry. But he should haveknown. He should haveasked. He should haverealised.’
‘Oh no, I’m so sorry,’ said Pippa, hugging her aunt.
Julia took the old woman’s hand. ‘You had an awful time, and no one helped you.’
‘I did, I did…It was awful. I had no one to talk to…I couldn’t tell anyone…’ Margaret seemed to regress again, gabbling tearfully, ‘Matthew said he loved me. But he left me. He left me all alone.’
32
The main road into Berrywick was lined with big white posters, attached to street lights, each with a single sentence.
Slow down, tortoises live here too!
Drive slowly, children bike on this road!
Slow down, dogs abound!
Be aware, children everywhere!
Julia felt a strange feeling of confusion and recognition. She recognised the words – after all, she had come up with the messages – but in all the drama with Aunt Margaret, she had completely forgotten that the posters were going to be put up that week. They must have gone up that very morning.
Julia was quietly delighted and slightly discombobulated by the fact that the words in the slogans had come out of her own brain. She drove on, in the direction of the police station, and saw the rest of her creations:
Drive slowly, our children walk to school.
Please drive carefully in our village.
Slow down, dog walkers ahead!
Tame driving keeps our wildlife safe!
They were pretty good, if she said so herself. Specific, official-sounding, but friendly. She was so busy reading her own roadsafety posters and congratulating herself on her copywriting that she failed to concentrate on the road. She looked up to see a pigeon standing in the middle of the road. Yanking the wheel to give the bird a wide berth, she almost scraped her tyre on the pavement.
‘Mind where you’re going,’ shouted the old gent who was standing at the roadside, preparing to cross.
She jammed on brakes and mouthed: ‘Sorry,’ through the windscreen.
‘Read the signs!’ he said, jabbing an angry finger diagonally upwards towards the closest one.
She smiled to herself at the irony of it all.
‘It’s no laughing matter,’ he said huffily. The pigeon eyed them both from the centre of the road.
Hayley Gibson was in her office with an expectant look on her face. ‘So, what is it that can’t wait until tomorrow?’
‘Do you know Pippa Baker’s Aunt Margaret?’
‘The one who’s ill?’
‘Yes, she has a brain tumour, poor woman. It’s been very hard on Pippa.’
Hayley frowned. ‘You needed me to urgently know that things have been hard for Pippa Baker?’
Julia smiled. ‘No, Hayley. Bear with me. Margaret, as it turns out, has a history with Lewis Band. Not a good one.’ Julia relayed the story of the band and its young singer, fresh from a Cotswold village, and how she’d suffered at the hands of one of her fellow band members.
‘If that Lewis Band was still alive, I swear, I would see him in prison, no matter how long ago the crime was committed,’ said the detective, with quiet, cold fury. She steadied herself with along, deep breath and said, in a more even tone, ‘But I’m not sure that there is anything I can do now.’
‘I just can’t help feeling there’s something more here, Hayley. That if we ask Margaret the right questions, she might lead us to the solution.’
