The Rhyme of the Magpie Page 6

  Michael regarded me for a moment without answering, but he took the bait, and for a few minutes I offered advice on handling Rupert and the television staff. Details were my strength, and I was happy to share my expertise.

  “Do you know Colin Happer?” Michael asked.

  “Daffy Happer, you mean?”

  Michael grinned. “Where did Daffy come from?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t do it—he brought that with him. Don’t tell me he’s been hanging about again.”

  “He’s angling for a second filming location for the show—quite near his own place down near Exeter.”

  “He tries this once or twice a year—the bounder. Thinks he can muscle in on Dad’s success. You should keep an eye on him.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I looked up to see Michael’s eyes flashing and a suppressed smile. I arched an eyebrow in response and continued my instruction. “Take no guff from Basil Blandy,” I said. “He’s a slacker and will whinge about the least little bit of work you give him.”

  “That much I’ve learned,” Michael said. “Every time I see him, he’s carrying on about building miniature ponds for a kids’ segment, but I’ve not seen a pond yet.”

  Michael stopped at the gents’ as I walked past the bar on the way to the door. As I approached, I heard Val talking to a fellow at the bar who was concentrating on the crossword.

  “The trouble with this country,” he said, jabbing his index finger onto the polished wood surface, “is that we throw aside any chance of supporting business and putting up new buildings for the sake of some bloody bird, that’s the trouble.”

  I should be happy that Val wanted to enter the discussion of the wind-farm proposal, but the thought of Power to the People made me queasy. Still, I was my father’s daughter, and couldn’t let the opportunity pass completely.

  “We can’t pave over the countryside, Val,” I said, buttoning my coat. “The country’s well-being is tied to its landscape—our ‘green and pleasant land,’ you know.”

  Val blushed as he wiped his hands on his apron. “No offense, Julia, of course. We were only having a discussion.”

  “Well, you should talk to Rupert—ask him what sort of long-term damage is done when we don’t think carefully about what we build.”

  I made my way to the entry and stood waiting for Michael. The pub door opened and I moved aside, after which I heard a voice.

  “Hello, Julia—you’ve cut your hair.”

  I looked up, my blood pulsing and my face hot. I couldn’t catch my breath. “Gavin?”

  Chapter 7

  He stood close and, as I was already against the wall, I had nowhere to move. He looked the same as ever—close-cropped black hair, stubbly beard, dark eyes, and that single dangling earring in the shape of a hovering kestrel. He wore black leather, as always.

  “It’s been too long,” he said in that purring tone he saved for women. “You’re looking well.” He put his hand against the wall behind me, which brought him within inches of my face. I detected a light scent of musk.

  “Yes, umm,” I said, shoving my hands in my coat pockets. “How are you?”

  “Is Rupert with you?” Gavin asked, glancing round the pub.

  “No, he isn’t,” I answered coldly.

  “It’s just that I wanted to talk with him about an idea I’ve had.”

  “Have you been to Marshy End?” I asked just as Michael walked over.

  “Is he there?” Gavin asked, and lowered his voice. “Are you going up to Marshy End?”

  Time to abort this conversation. “Gavin, this is Michael Sedgwick—he’s Rupert’s new assistant. My replacement.”

  Michael, of course, stuck out his hand. As Gavin shook it, he turned, looked me up and down, and said with a sly smile, “No one could replace you, Julia.”

  We were cut short by a shrieking kee-kee-kee emerging from Gavin’s jacket pocket. He took out his mobile and checked the screen. His eyes grew wide.

  “There you are,” he muttered. “Hold on, darling, I’m on my way.”

  “Lecky—a word!” Val shouted from behind the bar.

  Gavin raised his hand without answering and left.

  “Was that a birdcall?” Michael asked.

  “The ringtone? Yes—his damned kestrel,” I said as I pushed open the door.

  We saw taillights disappearing. The road was deserted. I took a deep breath.

  “Who was that, then?” Michael asked.

  “Gavin Lecky,” I said. “He’s a twitcher—he goes after rare-bird sightings. That’s probably an alert he got just now—telling him where to go to see what. He’s had two wives walk out on him because he spends his life chasing birds to add to his list. The second time he cut his honeymoon short after word came in of a lesser gray shrike on the Kent coast.”

  “Do you know him well?”

  Well? No, not well. Except for that one afternoon two years ago at Marshy End. I’d signed my divorce papers and was free of Nick and he of me, and I’d gone to the cottage on my own to be depressed. Gavin’s second wife had just left him, and he came up hoping we were filming an episode of A Bird in the Hand and he could annoy Dad. I don’t really know how it happened—I hadn’t even been drinking. Really, I had no excuse for my behavior, but there it was, on record—at least with my sister. I had phoned her that evening and confessed.

  “You had sex with Gavin Lecky?” she had practically shouted, sounding too delighted for words.

  “Quiet, Bee,” I had whispered, “I don’t want the children to hear.”

  Her voice dropped to a murmur. “How was it?”

  “He was quite”—I had cleared my throat as I searched for a noncommittal reply—“accommodating.”

  My mistake. Bianca had shrieked with laughter, and I had heard baby Emmet shriek in response. “Accommodating?” she had repeated. She has never let me forget it—to this day if I even have so much as a coffee with a man, she’ll ask, “And how accommodating do you think he might be?”

  “Julia?” Michael asked, bringing me back to the moment.

  I avoided his gaze and said coolly, “Gavin’s been following Rupert round for a few years now. He thinks A Bird in the Hand should have a segment on twitchers—starring himself. Says he has seven hundred birds on his list—no one believes him, of course.” I felt Michael continue to stare, and so I walked off toward his car and waited by the door.

  —

  Michael drove and I stewed. Apart from the general shock of seeing Gavin for the first time since that afternoon two years ago, I was also suspicious. Gavin hadn’t denied being up to Marshy End. If he hadn’t seen Rupert, perhaps he’d seen Kenneth Kersey. The twitchers certainly weren’t fans of any company that might disrupt the appearance of a rare bird. Hadn’t Gavin or one of them got into a shouting match with Kersey—or was it someone else from the company? I should mention that to Sergeant Flint when I gave my statement; it would do to shift some focus onto Gavin and his lot and away from Rupert.

  The guilt at how I’d treated my dad blossomed again, and I squirmed at what an outsider would see: an adult daughter—well-grown and all—stamping her foot at not getting her way. But my way wasn’t completely selfish—I missed my mum and didn’t understand how my dad could not. He’d turned to Beryl before we’d even finished writing replies to all the condolences. As I felt the familiar anger rising, I thought, Here I am, back at the beginning of the circle, making myself dizzy.

  “I’m worried about him,” I said as I stared through the rain-streaked windshield at the taillights ahead of us in the twilight.

  “Gavin?” Michael asked, a quick glance at me.

  “Rupert!” I said. “I wish he hadn’t gone away.”

  “Well, we’ll have to find him, then, won’t we?”

  I shifted round to get a better look at Michael, his face glowing slightly from the dashboard lights. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Giving you a lift? Did you want to stay back with Gav?”


  If he hadn’t been driving, I would’ve batted him about the head. “Why are you getting involved—trying to find Rupert?”

  Michael exhaled. “I have a job—it’s a good job. I’m assistant to Rupert Lanchester. Trouble is, my employer has gone missing. And now with this—what else am I supposed to do?”

  “If you need a job, perhaps you should go back to your previous one.”

  “I don’t need another job,” he said between gritted teeth, “I need this one.”

  There it was again, that flash of anger—I’d hit a sore spot. Old lives can be difficult to shed.

  A few minutes later, Michael cut his eyes at me, and I saw the spark had returned. “You’re no longer Rupert Lanchester’s assistant—why are you doing it?”

  Because of my inexcusable behavior toward him. Because of the terrible things I’d said to him—things I now wished I could take back. “Because he’s my dad.”

  —

  Michael dropped me off at Pipit Cottage with one more appeal. “I’ll talk with Beryl again,” he said. “There may be something she’s forgotten. And I’ll ring you after. If we’re going to find your dad”—oh yes, I took note that he said “dad” instead of “Rupert”—“we need to do this together.”

  “Right,” I said, and flashed him a smile. “Yes, certainly ring me if you hear anything.”

  He caught my arm as I was halfway out of the car. “I’ll need your number—don’t you think?”

  I gave it to him, and before I’d got two steps into my cottage, he’d sent me a text. “Stay in touch.”

  Unlikely—I could clear this up on my own. Once I talked with Dad and he explained to the police he was nowhere near Marshy End when Kersey was killed—for a guilty second I flashed on the empty Jaffa Cakes wrapper—then Sergeant Flint could be on his way to find the real killer.

  I tipped the last of the milk into a saucepan and heated it for a cup of cocoa. First, ring Bianca; after that, check the timetables for my journey to Cambridge. Without my car—why couldn’t I remember to ring the police?—I’d need to take the bus to Bury and rail to Cambridge. Wouldn’t take too long. I couldn’t ask Vesta for the loan of her car again—she had begun to have that way with me, and I imagined telling her my entire story over a cup of tea, then perhaps at last having the edges of my heart, still rubbed raw with grief, touched with a balm. There was no time for that now.

  When I rang my sister, Emelia answered, sounding thirty years old instead of ten.

  “Hello, 01736 55377, the Broom residence.”

  “Hello, Emmy, dear.”

  “Auntie Jools!” the ten-year-old returned. “Did Mummy tell you I’m to play Nana in Peter Pan? I tried for Wendy, but the teacher said I’m the only one with the skill to run about on all fours, and it’s really quite a privilege. Will you come and see me? It’s next month. Will you?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it—send me an email with the date, all right? Now, where is your mum?”

  “She’s talking to Daddy about the new baby. Mum said you saw the magpies. I told Mummy and Daddy they should choose a bird name that begins with ‘E’ for the baby, but all we could think of was Egret, and wouldn’t that be silly?”

  Emelia continued to chatter, and I heard the house noises behind her change as she walked from room to room. My mind wandered and I didn’t notice that Emmy had handed the phone to her mother until I heard Bee say sharply, “Julia, are you there?”

  “Bee, have you heard from Dad?”

  “Not since last week—why?”

  “Beryl rang—he’s gone off on one of his jaunts.” I used a light tone, and Bee responded in kind.

  “No, he didn’t forget to tell her, did he?”

  “He left a note, but didn’t say where he was. Not at Marshy End, apparently.” I felt safe in avoiding any mention of Kenneth Kersey. Bianca paid no attention to news in any form—on paper, television, or online, and I knew the name would mean nothing to her.

  “Oh, she should leave him be for a bit. He needed to get away, that’s all.”

  “Do you think he and Beryl might’ve had a fight?” I suppose I still held some tiny hope that was the reason he’d scarpered.

  “You mean like the time he took us off to Margate and left Mum behind at home?”

  “Margate? When I was nine? That was a holiday. Mum wasn’t able to go, so Dad took you and me.”

  Bianca laughed. “Yes, some holiday. They’d had a row and Dad went off in a huff, dragging us along. All he did was sit on the beach and be miserable.”

  “I thought he was holding still so I could bury him in the sand,” I said, steadily denying her accusation. “They never had a row.”

  “You’ve quite a selective memory when it comes to our parents’ marriage, Jools. You never remember the problems, only the happy times.”

  They were all happy times as far as I was concerned, but there was no arguing with Bee when she took on her older-sister tone.

  She continued. “A good marriage isn’t always easy—sometimes you’ve got to work through bad times and blocks of boredom to get to the good parts. A good marriage takes work—you and Nick lost interest in trying.”

  I was rapidly losing interest in this conversation. “Perhaps Dad will ring soon. I think he knows you’re pregnant—I think he saw magpies, too. The thing is”—I didn’t want to worry my sister, but she’s a levelheaded thinker, and I needed that right now—“he didn’t drive his Rover, it’s in the shop. Funny about that.”

  “Hmm. Well, he must’ve got hold of a car hire. He certainly wouldn’t ask to borrow yours, would he?”

  “Ah!” I cried out as that niggling worm popped out of the ground of its own accord. My little car hadn’t been nicked by a car thief—it had been nicked by my own father. I must’ve known it all along, and that’s why I hadn’t got round to ringing the police.

  Rupert hadn’t asked to borrow my car because I had banished him from my cottage. But he did have his own set of keys, and so perhaps he thought he could bring it back before I noticed.

  During my momentary silence, Bianca had started up a conversation with her husband, and it sounded as if all three children were joining in. “Bee!” I called.

  “Sorry, Jools—must run, Paul’s cooking. Byee.”

  The cacophony that was my sister’s life went silent when she rang off. I stood in my quiet kitchen, remembering my dad’s unsent text to me: “Jools, the rhyme of the magpie.” I thought of the four magpies I’d seen in the village and the one atop the cottage at Marshy End. Dad must’ve been referring to Bianca’s pregnancy. What else could it be?

  Chapter 8

  Monday—my day off. At least until June, when Lord Fotheringill’s plans for opening the TIC daily would kick in. I had plenty of time for breakfast before I set out for Cambridge midmorning, but I had used the last of the milk the night before, and there was no tea without it. After replenishing the bird food in the back garden—fat balls, seed, and a handful of sultanas for the blackbirds—I pulled on trousers and sweater, shoes and socks for a quick trip down to the shop.

  I glanced in the window of Three Bags Full, the village woollen shop. Toy ewes perched atop stacks of woven throws, cardigans, and sweaters, but what caught my eye was my own reflection. I licked my hand and tried to flatten the ski-slope side of my hair. Akash had seen worse, I was sure.

  Akash Kumar’s was a true village shop, selling just about everything from newspapers and bars of chocolate to Côtes du Rhône and ready-to-bake cannelloni. During the late-afternoon commute, traffic moved so slowly from the London road and onto the two-lane high street that a passenger was well able to get out of a car, buy something from the shop, and get back in before the car had moved more than a length or two.

  Thankfully, morning business was light, and the shop was empty except for its proprietor, who was on the phone. Akash, a tall, dark-skinned man with deep brown pools of eyes and a smattering of gray in his glossy black hair, nodded a greeting. I grabbed a small jug of milk and hel
d it up to show him it was a brief stop. I dug in my trouser pocket and began to count coins as Akash finished his phone conversation.

  “Good morning, Julia. My son’s new job,” he said with chagrin, “has made him bold enough to advise me on my business dealings. I need to protect my investment, Daniel says, build on what I own.” Akash shook his head. “ ‘I don’t own the shop,’ I tell him. ‘Lord Fotheringill owns it.’ ”

  “Is Daniel a banker?” I asked.

  “Public relations. ‘We make you look good’—apparently that’s the company’s motto.” Akash swept my coins off the counter and into his hand. “HMS, Ltd., it’s called. I said to him, shouldn’t it be HMS Pinafore, but he didn’t understand. He isn’t one for musical theater.”

  Akash shifted a box of apples off the counter, picked one up, and rolled it around in his hands. “Talking of music—do you know, Julia, does Ms. Widdersham enjoy the opera?”

  Ms. Widdersham, honestly! I ran a search on conversations I’ve had with Vesta in which music was mentioned. I recalled nothing about opera. “You know, Akash, I believe she does. Opera, yes, I’m sure I’ve heard her mention how much she loves it.”

  He smiled. “They will be putting on an outdoor performance of La Bohème in July over near Long Melford. I thought I might ask her.”

  July? Good God, you people need to get a move on—you aren’t getting any younger. “July, what a lovely time for opera. Outdoors.”

  Akash glanced up at my hair. “Your day off, is it?”

  I’d better get out of the public’s eye, I thought. I’d made it just out the door when I met Vesta on her way in. We stood together ill at ease, like the morning after a blind date.

  Vesta tilted her head, trying to make eye contact. “Julia, how are you?”

  “It’s all right, Vesta,” I said to head off any enquiries into my emotional state. But an image of Kersey’s body on the bank of the river flashed in my mind. Not everything was all right. I swallowed hard. “Dad’s fine.”