Page 13 of And Then There Was the One
“Of course you do,” she muttered. No doubt he had a live-in cook, too—or perhaps he took all of his meals at restaurants? She couldn’t imagine him preparing so much as a piece of toast for himself.
“What was that?” he asked cheerfully, and Georgie narrowed her eyes, unable to tell whether he genuinely hadn’t heard, or wasmerely pretending not to have done. She had the vague sense that the answer to this question would tell her something about the man before her.
“Nothing,” she said, before adding, “Egg, get up.” Egg made her leisurely way to her feet, quirking her ears at Georgie in the manner she was so fond of.
“Shall we embark on our tour of your fair village?” Fletcher-Ford asked, offering Georgie his arm. She looked pointedly down at it as though he’d just extended a venomous snake toward her, and he lowered it again, looking unperturbed. “An independent woman, I see—my favorite sort!” He stuck both hands in his pockets instead, looking unbothered by the waves of hostility fairly radiating off Georgie’s person.
Georgie clucked her tongue at Egg, who immediately fell into step beside her, and they set off down the lane. The Sleepy Hedgehog was situated at the far end of the village high street; if they turned, they’d have a view of the gently rolling hills that surrounded them, the green hillsides neatly broken up by tidy stone walls, the grassy slopes dotted with sheep. Ahead of them, the narrow cobblestoned street gently curved, with honey-colored stone cottages set on either side. Ivy crept up several of the cottages’ walls, and the happy sound of children at play emanated from the open windows of one house. A calico cat crossed the street in leisurely fashion, briefly exciting Egg, who offered an inquisitive bark; upon receiving a disdainful look from the cat, accompanied by a sudden puffing-up of its already-bushy tail, Egg sensibly subsided, and the cat continued its progress across the street unmolested.
Fletcher-Ford was looking around him with all appearancesof great delight, but Georgie supposed that something more than a silent presence with a dog at her heels was likely expected of her. “This is the high street,” she offered.Very helpful,she thought with some disgust.
Fletcher-Ford, however, merely smiled. “It’s lovely. How old did you say the village is?”
“I didn’t. And it depends on what you mean by the question.”
“How so?”
“Well,” Georgie said, “there’s evidence of settlements in this spot dating back to the Romans. Some Roman coins were found here a few decades ago.” She pointedly didnotmention that the so-called Woolly Hoard had been discovered by none other than the village’s one and only archaeology enthusiast (her father), or that it had consisted of precisely three coins in total. The British Museum hadn’t bothered to send someone out to examine them for months.
“We’re in the Domesday Book,” she added, “but most of the buildings only date back to the seventeenth century or so. Part of the church is a few hundred years older, though.” She felt a bit appalled by the note of faint pride that she detected in her voice at this last addition—she’d never had cause to previously consider whether she was proud of Buncombe-upon-Woolly or not. It had been home for her entire life; her family’s history was intertwined with that of the village itself. She didn’t leave very often, either, and something about Mr. Fletcher-Ford—with his tasteful jumpers and improbably well-coiffed hair and expensive wristwatch—made her suddenly feel terribly provincial.
“That’s the church there?” he asked as they passed St. Drogo’s.
“The one and only,” she confirmed.
“Site of the first murder, correct?”
“Yes. The vicar.”
“The blackmailing vicar,” he corrected cheerfully, which Georgie found somewhat distasteful, though if pressed she did not think she would have been able to definitively state what tone was appropriate for discussing blackmailing that eventually led to the homicide of a member of the clergy.
“And then this must be the bakery where the next murder took place!” he added, inclining his head toward the recently renamed Crawford’s. The Crawfords were a young couple who had moved to the village from Norwich during the winter and had taken over the premises. Their bread was not as good as Mr. Fieldstone’s had been, though Georgie had felt a bit disloyal to discover at Easter that their hot cross buns were vastly superior. “Nice of them all to cluster together so conveniently, isn’t it?” Fletcher-Ford asked.
“Have you noted the size of this village?Everythingis clustered together.”
“Just so, just so,” Fletcher-Ford agreed, his gaze alighting on Mary Montague, a young widow about Georgie’s age who was leaving the bakery with a loaf of bread tucked under one arm, with some interest. “I don’t suppose you’d offer an introduction, Miss Radcliffe?”
“For what purpose?” Georgie asked suspiciously.
“I just like to meet the locals,” he said, offering her a look of wide-eyed sincerity. “Especially the attractive ones. Present company included.”
Georgie cut him a narrow look, certain that he must bejoking, but he was amiably nodding at Mrs. Montague as she passed and didn’t seem to notice Georgie’s glare. Mrs. Montague gave him a flirtatious smile in return.Good lord,Georgie thought; she needed to get this matter wrapped up before Fletcher-Ford attempted to seduce half the village. She did not think the eligible women of Buncombe-upon-Woolly would be able to muster much resistance in the face of his jumpers. And his forearms.
Fortunately, the work at hand recalled itself to them at that precise moment, as they approached the Marbled Cheese. “The most recent murder took place there,” she said in an undertone, and Fletcher-Ford followed her gaze. “Mr. and Mrs. Marble live in a flat above their shop—well,lived, I suppose. He drank poisoned wine, and his wife has been arrested.”
“I see,” Fletcher-Ford said neutrally, casting a quick glance in her direction. “Did you solve that one, too?”
“No. The police made the arrest… quite expediently.”
“And didn’t ask for any help from you?”
“They’ve never asked for any help from me,” she said, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw his eyebrows raise at the curt note in her voice. She took a breath and attempted a less openly hostile tone. “The police—except for Constable Lexington—have never viewed my contributions with much gratitude.”
“That seems rich, considering, as I understand it, you solved a couple of cases for them.” His tone was mild, his expression the same one of bland appreciation that it had been a moment before, but Georgie stumbled a bit at this unexpectedword of support. He reached out to steady her with a quick hand to the elbow, but despite his seeming inability to see a woman without flirting with her, his touch didn’t linger.
“Detective Inspector Harriday remains very insistent that my contributions were just interferences,” she said. They’d stopped walking after her stumble, and now stood before the Marbled Cheese, facing each other. Georgie watched a pair of Murder Tourists—two women her age, attired stylishly—approach and proceed to do a very poor job of pretending that they weren’t ogling Fletcher-Ford. She pressed her lips together into a thin line.
“In his telling,” she continued, attempting to ignore the women, “he was minutes away from solving each crime himself, until I came along and stole his glory.”
