But just in case they might be watching her through a gap in the hedge or something, she opened the front door and went inside, shutting the door gratefully behind her. Her heart pounding, she leaned on it for a few moments, taking deep, calming breaths.
Although lying to them the way she’d just done had felt surprisingly wonderful, the strain of it had also taken a toll. Grimly, she wondered if Iris had been right when she used to mock her and call her a goody-two-shoes who’d never be able to have any fun in life.
‘Hello love, did I hear the front door?’ her mother’s voice came through from the kitchen, making her almost jump out of her skin.
‘No, it’s just me. I thought I heard the postman, but it was nothing. I’m going upstairs to read, Mum.’
‘All right, love. Lunch will be at twelve.’
Janet ignored this, and went upstairs, her legs still feeling curiously rubbery beneath her.
She clutched her secret close, savouring it like a miser gleefully savours the feel of gold. Because, of course, Iris had long since told her all about not only David’s diary, but also about his habit of using other little notebooks too, that he used to keep on him to write down ideas or thoughts as and when they occurred to him. It was probably the budding engineer in him, Janet had supposed, but Iris often laughed about it. ‘Really, Jan-Jan, I wonder what on earth he ever finds to write about! He’s so boring, and his life is so boring, and everything here is so boring …’
As she threw herself on her bed and lay staring up at the ceiling, Janet could almost hear her dead friend’s voice in the actual room, so clear did it sound.
Trust Iris to make a joke about something so private, Janet mused now. She’d asked Iris once if she’d ever read David’s personal diary, but her friend had denied it. She’d said she was hardly interested – she knew all there was to know about him anyway.
Which was probably true, Janet concluded, her lips twisting into a grim smile. If there was one thing you could say about Iris, it was that she had a way of learning everybody’s little secrets … especially those of the opposite sex.
She turned onto her side, wondering if Ronnie had any secrets … But the thought displeased her, so she pushed it away and concentrated instead on the here and now.
For a long time she lay on the bed, forcing herself to relax, to try and calm down, and to think rationally. But it wasn’t easy. She felt so excited! For it was slowly dawning on her that for once in her boring life she knew something that nobody else did. And with it, came a feeling of power.
Which was a unique feeling indeed for Janet.
Normally her mother always knew best, or Iris had the upper hand, or the old dragon at the shop was lording it over her, or, well, anybody else in her life, if it came to that. All her life, she’d done as she was told, and been a good girl, and played everything safe.
And now it felt just so deliciously heady and wonderful to feel as if she might have the upper hand at last.
Possibly.
Slowly Janet sat up and hugged her knees under her chin. She needed to think. Really think. She had to be very careful about what she did next. Very careful indeed.
Chapter 24
‘Was it me, or do you think Janet is getting over Iris’s death pretty quickly?’ Trudy asked. They were walking away from the Baines’ cottage and further into the village, where the Finch family lived.
‘No, I got the feeling her mind was on other things too,’ Clement said.
‘She nearly jumped out of her skin when I mentioned David’s diary,’ Trudy said. ‘I’m sure she—’
‘Sssshhh,’ Clement hissed a warning, but he had a feeling he was too late. Three children, two girls and a boy, aged between eight and ten or so, suddenly shot out of the bushes where they’d been hiding, and ran off giggling.
‘Oh damn!’ Trudy said in frustration. ‘Do you think they heard me?’
Clement sighed. ‘I’m afraid so.’
Trudy could have kicked herself. She knew how villages worked. Before tea-time, the entire inhabitants of Middle Fenton would be talking about the dead boy’s diary.
‘It probably won’t matter,’ Clement tried to console her. ‘So far, we only have Mortimer Crowley’s word that it ever existed.’ Inside, though, he couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy. If the journal or some sort of notebook did exist, then there was a good chance that its contents might just pose a threat to whoever had strangled the May Queen; and more and more he was inclined to believe that that somebody was not David Finch.
So once the killer got to hear the rumours about the possibility of the journal’s existence, they’d surely become desperate to get their hands on it, and that thought wasn’t a pretty one. Especially since Clement was inclined to believe that the person who had murdered Iris Carmody in such a dramatic way must have been in a very emotional state to begin with. To give vent to his (or her?) feelings in such a way that he needed to leave the poor girl’s body trussed to the maypole in full public view, spoke of a very disturbed mentality indeed. The act screamed of someone crazed with love, rage or despair – or maybe a combination of all three.
And he doubted that such
