Read Online A Market for Murder by Rebecca Tope - Free Book Online

itself was frustrating, with May such a busy month. And despite Drew’s clear opposition, she still very much wanted to go and see Mary Thomas and get to the bottom of the mysterious remarks made by Geraldine Beech. Mary was reasonably good with children, and would probably have no objection to Karen paying a visit accompanied by Stephanie and Timmy. She had always made a big thing of having an open house, welcoming callers announced or otherwise. Karen had concluded that the woman was lonely, rattling around in that great mansion all on her own, since she’d been widowed some years before. There were seven bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a maze of cold under-furnished downstairs rooms. On the few occasions that Karen had dropped in with the kids, they’d absolutelyloved it, given permission to explore at will.
    Peering out of the window at the burial field behind the house, Karen assessed the prospects for the weather. The sky appeared to be lightening, she thought, and the rain turning more to a misty drizzle. Darn it, she’d go, whether Drew liked it or not.
    Despite their financial hardships in the early days of Peaceful Repose, Karen had always insisted on retaining a car of her own. When she was teaching, it had been a necessity, and since giving up the job, she’d made sure she retained the mobility she felt she was due.
    ‘Tell you what,’ she said to Stephanie, just after lunch, ‘why don’t we go visiting?’
    Stephanie frowned thoughtfully. ‘Visiting?’ she echoed.
    ‘A nice lady – Mary’s her name. You saw her at the …’ She stopped herself just in time. What folly that would have been, to remind the child about those seconds before the bomb blast, when Mary Thomas had been talking to them in the supermarket car park. Damn it, thought Karen – there doesn’t seem to be any safe topic to talk about any more. And what if Stephanie recognised Mary and had hysterics because of the association? Well, she’d have to take that risk. There were limits to the levels of avoidance you could sustain.
    * * *
    Mary Thomas’s house was the dominant feature of Ferngate village, as Karen had explained to the police on Monday. Its name of Cherry Blossoms was amply vindicated by the presence of a large old orchard full of fruit trees, many of them fruiting cherries. The blossom was just finishing now, the petals making a dense sea of white and pale brown beneath the trees.
    ‘Stay here a minute,’ Karen told the children, although they had little choice, strapped as they were into their seats in the back of the car. ‘I’ll just see if she’s in.’
    ‘Don’t!’ said Stephanie urgently. ‘Don’t leave us.’
    ‘Bang, bang,’ said Timmy happily and irrelevantly. Stephanie punched him.
    ‘Hey!’ Karen warned her. ‘Look, I’m just going to the door – there. You can see it easily.’
    The front door was imposing, with a porch almost worthy of a church and a clanging bell to be handled with authority if it was to attract attention from the bowels of the house. Nothing happened for a full two minutes after Karen had done her worst with it. She was turning to leave when a voice called from a distant point away to the left, where the orchard was.
    Mary Thomas came quickly towards her, wading through high grass and fallen blossom. She wore a long skirt, which made her seem old-fashioned  and eccentric. Not a flowing Indian cotton skirt, but a heavy straight one, too warm for the time of year and entirely wrong for a rainy day. It did not, however, appear to encumber her progress.
    ‘Hello?’ she said, from the wrought-iron gate that separated her front garden from the orchard. ‘What can I do for you?’ The tone was cool, the expression unsmiling. Karen thought again what a distinctive face it was: the eyes so deeply sunk that it seemed they’d have difficulty in seeing out from beneath the thick brows.
    ‘Well …’ Karen felt suddenly self-conscious. ‘I brought the kids. Um, you did say,