The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson (books for students to read TXT) 📕

gone to wrack and ruin, lying open to the elements for centuries until it was walled off and used as a schoolroom. Jack felt uncomfortable treading on the tombs of the men beheaded at the battle of Tewkesbury – the Dukes of Somerset and Devon and more – interred beneath what was now the abbey’s gift shop.

For all that St James’s Chapel was dedicated to Mammon, Jack felt his spirits lifted by the bright objects and myriad scents of candles, potpourri oil and branded soap. Spotlight tracks across the vaulted ceiling shone on abbey mugs, boxes of abbey chocolate and fudge. A table was piled with rose and lavender hand cream, framed pictures of Christ in the stable and saints hung from wire strung from one cladded pillar to another.

No sign of Joy or Beverly. Their absence surely an invitation to any muggers Janet hadn’t nabbed. A sign warned CCTV was in operation. Jack located the camera and gave it a long stare. That should smoke Joy out from her sarcophagus. When he’d met her after evensong in what was now a different ‘without Stella’ life, Jack had felt something was off about her. Or was it that Joy had got to spend two evenings at a Death Café with Stella? Jealousy kills.

Jack gravitated to a carousel dominated by fabric hen doorstops. Easter leftovers, they were reduced to £5.50. He toyed with getting one for Stella before coming to his senses.

‘Are you looking for a specific item, sir?’ In abbey gift shop uniform of cream shirt, navy cardigan and tabard, Joy looked sterner than in the multicoloured knitted jacket of last time. Of a similar age to Stella, they were chalk and cheese. Stella dressed forever young while Joy’s cream tea and Christian outfit suggested timeless middle-age. If Joy was their murderer, she was in perfect disguise.

‘It’s a stocking filler, for my partner.’ While not foolproof, Jack’s principle of opening his mouth in the hope the right words came out generally served. On the pretext of admiring the shop, Jack scanned for Beverly. ‘Gosh, do you manage this lovely emporium alone?’

‘I have a girl.’ Joy didn’t expand.

Damn. Stella had warned him not to sweet-talk Joy but, intent on nuzzling her neck, he hadn’t paid heed. Joy was no-nonsense.

As were Roddy and Clive’s murders.

‘Thank heavens, it’s a lot to manage.’ Jack swept an arm around the empty shop.

‘Does he or she like jewellery? Some nice earrings and necklaces have come in.’ Joy was all business.

‘No.’ Stella would hate ‘nice earrings’. Catching sight of a miniature Joseph carrying a lantern with a lamb snuffling in his robes and a Mary with baby Jesus, Jack crowed, ‘Perfect. It must be a gift that brings peace. She recently had a shock.’

‘Five pounds for the pair.’ Ignoring the reference to shock, Joy was supremely professional. Or she was a psychopath.

‘She was attacked on that bridge by the weir.’

If Joy had attacked Stella, she might now recall that she’d met Jack before. Yet her expression remained inscrutable. Jack prattled on, ‘What with that terrible murder here, well, not literally here, at the Wakeman Cenotaph. Terrible to die violently in a sanctified space. Or perhaps a comfort.’

‘I doubt Mr March was bothered by the scene of his death or that he was stabbed with a sharp knife. He’ll be where he belongs now.’ Joy slid Mary and Joseph across the counter towards Jack.

‘So right. Do you think it was this gang of boys the police have arrested?’ Jack imagined Mary and Joseph were himself and Stella. Concentrate.

‘These days it’s as likely to be a female. One knows where one is with boys.’ Joy was animated. Did she know March was killed by a woman?

‘Do you feel safe here?’ Not a kind question, but proof boys weren’t so reliable.

‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Joy shook her head and said, ‘We have hens going cheap.’ Her face betrayed no sense this might be humour so Jack didn’t laugh.

‘Don’t they look fun? After her shock.’ He did want a hen. True Hosts could read your mind. ‘What with these murders, she’s set to hightail it out of Tewkesbury. Boo-hoo, I say.’

‘We don’t get murders every week and Clive probably slipped and fell on his sundial. That was him all over.’

‘Oh, crikey.’ Jack clasped his hands. ‘You knew the poor gentleman? I am so very, very sorry. I gather he was a clockmaker.’

‘Clive had more enemies than clocks – he overcharged.’ Joy was emptying Mary and Josephs from their boxes onto the counter. ‘Not to mention wandering hands. Some deluded souls, naming no names, put his disinhibition down to dementia. Clive Burgess was as sharp as a pendulum, he was born an octopus.’

‘Did, um, did Clive wander in your dir…?’ The Marys were lined up in the front of the Josephs.

‘Do you want a set?’ Joy waved a hand at one of the carousels. ‘Or a hen?’

‘Yes and yes.’ Jack snatched a hen from the stand and speaking confidentially to it, ‘My partner read somewhere that the murdered podcaster, Ron Marsh was it, received death threats.’

‘March. Roderick. She may also have “read somewhere” that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.’ Joy shoved two Marys into a box and, snatching the hen from Jack, snipped off the price label. ‘Due to saving the planet, we don’t gift wrap, do you want a bag?’

‘I’ll give them to her now, dwelling on Christ’s birth and his um…’ Jack clasped the Easter hen, ‘…resurrection will be calming.’ He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.

Beverly was crouched in a corner unpacking gigantic candles, shaking her head. Yes, OK, wrong tack.

‘A couple of plastic Nativity icons won’t satisfy a lust for gossip. Try the internet. Or perhaps you have.’ Game set and match to Joy.

Chapter Forty-Six

2019

Stella

‘I keep inviting you at short notice. My father called me impulsive, I wanted to clarify that you’re not just my cleaner, not my cleaner at all, you clean for me.’ Felicity was wheezing slightly as