Murder in the Orchard: A totally gripping cozy mystery novel Read online

  Murder in the Orchard

  A totally gripping cozy mystery novel

  Betty Rowlands

  Books by Betty Rowlands

  THE MELISSA CRAIG SERIES

  Murder at Hawthorn Cottage

  Murder in the Morning

  Murder on the Clifftops

  Murder at the Manor Hotel

  Murder on a Winter Afternoon

  Murder in the Orchard

  Murder at Larkfield Barn

  Murder in Langley Woods

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Hear More from Betty

  Books by Betty Rowlands

  A Letter from Betty

  Murder at Hawthorn Cottage

  Murder in the Morning

  Murder on the Clifftops

  Murder at the Manor Hotel

  Murder on a Winter Afternoon

  One

  Stewart Miles Haughan (pronounced to rhyme with ‘often’), joint proprietor with his wife Verity of the Uphanger Learning Centre in Gloucestershire, reached for the last item in his in-tray. On the other side of the desk sat his secretary, Peggy Drage, her eyes on her notebook and her pencil poised. One couldn’t relax for a moment when taking dictation from Stewart. He would grab a letter, scan it briefly, perhaps hurl a couple of questions at her (and bawl her out if she did not have the answers at her fingertips) before the reply came rattling out with the speed of machine-gun fire, impossible to take down verbatim. Not that it mattered unduly if one missed something here and there. Stewart’s memory was in some respects as unreliable as his temper; so long as the main thrust of his message came across, the actual wording was of secondary importance. In any case, putting a good letter together was one of the things you paid a secretary for, wasn’t it? The only time he made a comment was when something displeased him. Like now.

  ‘What the bloody hell’s this?’ He leapt to his feet and leaned across the desk, holding a sheet of paper under Peggy’s nose. Startled, she looked up and quailed a little at the fury in his expression; this was more than one of his normal tantrums. His voice rose to a bellow. ‘Are you deaf, or stupid, or what? I thought I told you not to show me any more of this crap.’

  Mechanically, Peggy took the paper and glanced at the three lines typed on it. Oh Lord, not another one! How on earth had it got into his in-tray?

  ‘I didn’t put it there,’ she said, struggling to keep her poise in the face of his bullying manner. ‘I’m sure it didn’t come in the post.’

  He wouldn’t believe her, of course. It was easier to call her a liar and an incompetent fool than to make any sort of rational attempt to find out who was sending these wretched little missives.

  ‘Then bloody well find out where it did come from,’ Stewart snarled. He made a throwing movement towards her; had the paper been a more weighty object it would have hit her in the face instead of fluttering into her lap. ‘If I see any more of those sheets of arse-paper, you’re fired!’

  Peggy stood up, gathered the pile of correspondence and returned it to the empty in-tray. ‘Stewart, I have absolutely no idea how that thing got in with your mail,’ she said firmly. ‘Any more than I was able to account for the ones that did come through the post.’

  ‘I suppose you’re telling me the fairies are sending them. Little poems, must have been written by the little people!’ He grinned unexpectedly, his good humour restored for the moment by his own wit. ‘Just make sure I don’t see any more of them, that’s a good girl.’ He reached for the telephone. ‘Give me a line.’

  The storm had blown itself out. Thankfully, Peggy withdrew to the outer office and connected Stewart’s extension to the exchange. Within seconds, he could be heard browbeating some other unfortunate who had failed to meet his expectations. Meanwhile, questioning faces turned in Peggy’s direction.

  ‘Another one?’ asked Sadie Warner, junior clerk and general dogsbody.

  ‘It was in with his letters. Which of you put it there? Well, one of you must have done,’ she continued as both Sadie and the accounts clerk, Pam Sinclair, looked blank and shook their heads.

  ‘George?’

  The retired bank employee who came in three days a week to look after the Centre’s library of textbooks and cassettes glanced over his shoulder from his seat in the corner and said emphatically, ‘Not me.’

  Sadie edged forward, her round face alight with eager curiosity. ‘What’s this one say?’

  Everyone clustered round while Pam, craning over Peggy’s shoulder, read aloud:

  Spring ended too soon

  With no summer to follow

  Winter is so cold

  Martin Morris, the gardener and handyman, who had called in to pick up some car keys and remained to eavesdrop on the latest splenetic outburst from their employer, gave a soft whistle. ‘That’s creepy,’ he remarked. ‘Any idea what it means?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Peggy. ‘Unless … maybe it’s a reference to a nuclear winter …’

  ‘Or the destruction of the rain forests?’ suggested Sadie, who was into environmental causes and had recently joined in a demonstration against the use of tropical hardwoods.

  ‘Why send it to Stewart?’ said Pam. ‘He’s the last person to heed cryptic warnings.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s got a mahogany toilet seat in his bathroom,’ said George drily, without turning round.

  Peggy shook her head. ‘If that’s what’s behind it’ – the unintentional double entendre sent the two girls into a fit of the giggles and earned them a frown of disapproval – ‘I mean, if that’s the reason for all these messages, then the person sending them obviously doesn’t know Stewart. He’s not interested in the environment.’ Or anything else that doesn’t directly concern him, she thought to herself, as she went back to her desk. She was still smarting at the threat of dismissal … not that he meant it, of course, but the suggestion that she might be considered dispensable hurt all the same.

  ‘I reckon he’s got some idea of what it’s all about,’ said Martin, jerking his head in the direction of Stewart’s office door, behind which yet another hapless individual was taking verbal punishment, ‘or he wouldn’t have got in such a rage.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Peggy with a shrug. ‘He barely glanced at it before he threw it at me.’ She screwed the piece of paper into a ball and dropped it into the bin beside her desk. ‘He didn’t take much interest in the others, either.’

  ‘How many has he had altogether?’ asked Martin.

  ‘Quite a few – at least half a dozen. They’ve all been on the same sort of melancholy theme, but at the same time whimsical and airy-fairy.’ She smiled. ‘Maybe that’s what made him think the “little people” might have written them. Oh well, better get on with some work. That goes for you lot as well,’ she added. Pam and Sadie scuttled back to their desks while Martin, with a departing wave, returned to whatever task he had set himself that morning.

  Pounding away at her typewriter – despite repeated requests, Stewart flatly refused to buy a w
ord processor – Peggy asked herself for the hundredth time why she had come to Uphanger. The answer was simple: despite his cavalier treatment in years gone by, she was still in love with him. She had learned to hide her feelings; indeed, there were times when she was able to put them – and the brief affair that had brought her so much grief – from her mind. She was under no illusions about Stewart’s attitude; for him, it was something that had never happened. Discarded mistresses and inconvenient promises were all alike to him: forgettable.

  Above all things he was a business man, pushy, ruthless and ambitious. He wanted an efficient secretary to help him get Uphanger Learning Centre established in a highly competitive market and had persuaded her to take the job, using all the charm that had seduced her so long ago. Against her better judgement and the advice of those closest to her, she had agreed, happy to think that he needed her. She knew from experience that he was hell to work for, but no matter how much his moods hurt her, life without him would hurt even more. So she put up with his searing comments, his sarcasm and abuse, knowing that they were as ephemeral as his promises.

  A preposterous, impossible, infuriating man. She loved him, but there were times when she could murder him.

  By half-past four, the classes were over. There followed the usual series of visits from students wishing to exchange books or tapes, check travel arrangements or pick up messages, but now the last car had vanished down the sweeping, gravelled drive and a temporary lull settled over the office. Pam and Sadie had gone off to the ladies’ room to powder their noses and discuss plans for the evening; George had already tidied away the returned books and cassettes, and gone home.

  Peggy finished the last of the day’s letters, checked it and put it in the signature book with the others. As she flipped through the blotting-paper sheets in search of the first free space, her hand froze.

  ‘Oh no, I don’t believe it!’ she muttered. Tucked between the last two pages was a sheet of paper that she had not put there. Two in one day. This was getting beyond a joke. If Stewart were to see it, he’d blow his top. He’d think …

  The door to the inner office was flung open and Stewart breezed out, apparently in an excellent humour. ‘Got my mail ready? There’s a good girl … what’ve you got there?’

  Peggy’s first thought had been to hide the missive, but Stewart’s eyes were sharp and any furtive movement would have aroused his immediate suspicion. She screwed it up and tossed it into the bin. ‘Just another of those stupid poems,’ she said calmly. ‘Nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ His tone was even, but the air of bonhomie with which he had entered was gone. He took the signature book and retreated, closing the door behind him.

  The girls came back, prinked and freshly perfumed, and prepared to leave. Martin called in to return the keys and exchange some friendly banter with Pam whom, it was generally believed, he fancied. Stewart re-emerged, handed over the signed correspondence without comment and stood watching, his hands in his pockets, while the three women, with Martin’s willing assistance, folded the letters, sealed and stamped them. The day’s work was done and the four of them went outside into the warm September sunshine, exchanged farewells and went on their separate ways.

  None thought to glance back through the window of the general office. Had they done so, they would have been puzzled to see Stewart rummaging through the contents of Peggy’s litter bin.

  Two

  Melissa Craig sat down on the wooden seat outside the cottage adjoining her own and accepted a cup of Earl Grey tea from her friend Iris Ash.

  ‘Just what the doctor ordered,’ she said with a grateful smile. ‘Gardening is thirsty work.’

  Iris, brown as a ripe hazelnut and lean and supple as a willow stem, sat down beside Melissa and squeezed the slice of lemon in her tea with the back of a spoon. ‘Ideal weather for it,’ she remarked.

  It was indeed a perfect September afternoon, mellow, golden and peaceful. The little stone patio where the two women sat was encircled with flowers, every plant chosen as much for its fragrance as its blooms. There was vanilla-scented phlox, aromatic bergamot, old-fashioned tea roses and pinks with their hint of cloves. Beyond the border was Iris’s kitchen garden, from which every year she harvested miraculous quantities of the fruit and vegetables that formed an important part of her diet. It was largely due to her influence that Melissa, who had never thought of herself as a gardener until she came to live next door, derived much quiet pleasure and satisfaction – although never such spectacular crops – from her own plot.

  Iris finished her tea and put her cup and saucer on a low wooden table, bleached, like the chairs, almost white from constant exposure to the sun, rain and snow of the Cotswolds. She flexed her arms and then clasped her hands behind her head as she surveyed her little kingdom with an air of supreme contentment.

  ‘Friday again,’ she remarked. ‘Any plans for the weekend?’

  Melissa hesitated for a moment before saying, as casually as she could, ‘I’m having dinner with Ken Harris tomorrow.’

  Iris gave her a keen glance. ‘Seeing too much of that policeman,’ she said. ‘Still a married man, remember. What if the wife comes back?’

  ‘She wants a divorce. Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘Even more tricky. Next thing, he’ll be wanting to move in with you.’

  ‘He’s already asked me to move in with him,’ admitted Melissa.

  ‘Mel! You aren’t going to?’ Iris’s sharp features registered shock and dismay, and her voice held a note of anxiety that Melissa found both gratifying and touching. She put a hand on her friend’s shoulder.

  ‘Would you miss me?’

  ‘Course I would.’ Iris shook off the hand with an irritable movement. ‘Not the point. Drive you mad in a month, living with that man. Any man.’

  ‘I daresay you’re right.’ Melissa put her empty cup beside Iris’s and helped herself to another home-baked cookie. ‘In fact, I know you are. I’d have to adapt to his routine – or rather, lack of it – and I’m sure my writing would suffer. And I don’t think I could bear the thought of leaving all this.’ She made a gesture which encompassed the two cottages, their gardens and the secluded valley in which they lay. As if to add weight to the argument, a robin, perched in the elder tree that gave Iris’s cottage its name, suddenly burst into song.

  ‘There you are, then,’ said Iris, as if that ended the matter.

  ‘The trouble is, he’s so darned persuasive,’ Melissa complained. ‘Says I can have a free hand in the house, change things round to suit me, rig up the spare room as a study …’

  ‘Hm!’ sniffed Iris. ‘That’s men all over. Wheedle away until they’ve got you where they want you and then expect you to dance to their tune.’ This, for her, was an unusually long speech and gave an indication of the depth of her feelings.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re having the same trouble with Jack Hammond?’ Iris had recently developed a relationship, the depth and intimacy of which she was careful not to reveal, with a fellow artist who lived in Somerset and whom she visited from time to time. He had not, so far as Melissa was aware, ever been invited to Elder Cottage.

  A mischievous gleam shone in Iris’s bright grey eyes, giving her the appearance of a benevolent witch. ‘Trouble? Not on your life. Knows exactly where he stands. Good pal, Jack,’ she added, her expression softening.

  Melissa nodded with understanding. Iris had been hurt more than once in the past; no one could blame her for being cautious. It was a lesson she herself would do well to learn. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said slowly, ‘I’ve been thinking of going away somewhere quiet for a few days, just to think things over.’

  Iris paused in the act of adjusting the tortoiseshell slides that held her short, mouse-brown hair in place and gave a curious stare. ‘Quieter than Upper Benbury? You going into retreat?’

  ‘Something like that. Not in a religious house, though. A “writers’ retreat”. Do you remember that time I was
asked to give a week’s course in crime fiction at a place near Stowbridge?’

  ‘I remember. Too mean to pay a decent fee, weren’t they? Place with an odd name.’

  ‘Uphanger Learning Centre. You’re right about the fee. They were only offering peanuts and Joe Martin advised me to turn them down. I heard later on the grapevine that they got a journalist who used to write crime reports for the Gazette to run the course. I don’t think it was a howling success.’

  ‘Serve ’em right for being stingy. So what’s this about a retreat?’

  ‘They’ve converted a disused stable block into study bedrooms where harassed writers can hide away from it all to work on their masterpieces. Find peace and regain inspiration in the rustic tranquillity of Uphanger – so runs their blurb.’

  ‘You reckon this’d help you sort out Ken Harris?’

  ‘It might not be a bad thing to disappear for a little while.’

  ‘Do an Agatha Christie?’ suggested Iris with a grin. ‘Make good publicity – your agent would love it.’

  ‘I’m not telling Joe,’ said Melissa firmly. ‘He’s another reason why a few days beyond the reach of a phone would be bliss. He’s been on to me twice this week, asking when the next book’s going to be finished.’

  Iris stood up and put on her gardening gloves. ‘Onions have priority today. Let’s get the jobs finished.’

  ‘Right. I’ll get back to my potatoes. I’ve only one more row to lift.’ Melissa collected the tea things and put them on a tray. ‘Shall I take these into the kitchen on my way out?’