Murder on Monday

thought of Nurse Surfleet, still living and working in the village, full of bitter memories. Her part in the sordid affair had somehow been hushed up and hadn’t come out in the press, though of course the village knew and lost their respect for her as a result. Lois thought it strange that she hadn’t moved away.

It was a couple of minutes before Lois answered Josie’s question. Would Derek like it here? Plenty of outbuildings and a big garden. He’d like that. And rooms for all the kids to have one each, with a huge attic where they could have their stuff.

“What do you think, Josie?” she said. She felt out of her depth still with Josie. They’d had all kinds of counselling, of course, but Josie had maintained a stubborn silence, turned in on herself in a grief she could not share. For hours, it seemed to Lois and Derek, she shut herself in her bedroom, talking quietly to the little ginger cat. Time, the experts said. Give her time, and she’ll come out of it. Now she seemed to have begun, and Lois was anxious to get it right.

Josie didn’t reply, and carried on up the stairs with Lois following. “Where’s that little room you told me about,” Josie said at last, adding, “Where they’d set it up for a baby.” Lois showed her. It was bare, except for the curtains left behind, the nursery curtains that Mary Rix had decided to leave there when it became a sewing room, but in the end had abandoned.

“She could’ve had Melvyn in here,” Josie said, and Lois saw with huge relief that she was crying, large tears streaming down her pale cheeks. It was the first time since Melvyn’s arrest, and Lois knew it was a step forward. She stretched out her arms tentatively, and Josie finally returned her hug. “Got a tissue, Mum?” she said, and after a minute or so walked over to open a window. She pushed back the curtains. “Nice view,” she said, and the yellow sailing boats danced once more in the breeze.

Lois nodded, her thoughts still with the Rixes. She wondered if Dr Rix had ever considered asking Mary to have Melvyn. Was it just possible that she would have agreed? She had seemed a strong woman. No, she’d never have taken Gloria’s baby in, not then, with Gloria still living in the village, watching with a supercilious smirk of triumph.

Lois wandered from room to room, remembering sunny days, thinking she could hear the hum of Mary’s sewing machine. And what about me? she thought. I’d never take up the old jobs again, for those that are still here. The kids wouldn’t like it. No, it’ll take a bit of thought. She felt a different person from the one who’d come to Farnden as a cleaner. Something to do with Keith Simpson, and Janice and Hunter Cowgill, of course. He’d been in touch, asking her what her plans were. Don’t want to lose contact, he’d said in his cool voice. Let us know what you decide to do, he’d said, several times.

She had been talking in a desultory way with Derek, and he’d suggested maybe expanding, setting up a cleaning business.

“Careful Cleaners, you could call it,” he’d said. The idea had been smouldering away in her mind, and she could see its possibilities. Other villages, other houses, with a few cleaners on her books to hire out. She could work well from here, even set up a little office in the doctor’s old surgery. She’d think of a better name than Derek’s suggestion! And Hunter Cowgill? Well, she could see possibilities there, too.

“Mum?” It was Josie, still in the sewing room, calling to her. She went back and stood with her arm around her.

“All right, love?” she said.

Josie nodded. “More or less. And anyway, Mum,” she added, “if we come to live here, can I have this room for my own?”

Lois smiled. “So is it decided?” she said, and they walked back to the estate agent, arm in arm. He’d been in the job a long time, and as they came out of the front door, he looked at their faces and knew he’d made a sale.