Close to Death

Before either of them could say anything more, there was a movement outside the window and a young woman walked past, dressed in a vest top and jeans, pushing a wheelbarrow.

‘Is that Sarah Baines?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘Yes.’

‘She works here?’

‘She does all the gardens.’

‘Not the Kenworthys’,’ Dudley said. ‘They fired her.’

‘Would you mind if we had a word with her?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘There’s nothing more you want to ask me?’

‘Not for the moment, thanks.’

Andrew Pennington got up and opened the French windows. ‘Then be my guest . . .’

9

Sarah Baines had been mowing. As Hawthorne and Dudley walked up to her, she was unloading the wheelbarrow onto a compost heap.

She was a statuesque woman, tall and muscular, with auburn hair brushing over her eyes, twisting around her neck and plunging down to her ample breast. Her clothes, especially her heavy black gardening gloves, did her no favours – but when she turned and smiled, she was strikingly attractive: formidable, certainly, but with something of the magnetism of a movie star, perhaps in a superhero film. Her vest top revealed bare arms with tattoos on both biceps: a pair of dice on the left and a spider’s web on the right. The wheelbarrow was old and heavy, but she had no trouble manouevring it, spilling weeds and grass cuttings – along with a number of undeserving flowers – onto the pile.

Andrew Pennington’s garden was surprisingly large, almost twice the size of its neighbours. It was L-shaped, starting with a York stone patio, a wooden table and six chairs. Beyond this, the lawn stretched all the way round the side of the house, bordered by a long line of flower beds that stretched from one end to the other. Climbing roses and jasmine had been planted against a brick wall that separated the property from the main road. They provided a colourful background for the medieval well that had been the cause of so much misery and which stood on its own with a gravel surround. Ellery would have had no trouble coming through the shrubs that separated the garden from May Winslow’s. He could have been carried just as easily.

The scratches were no longer showing on Sarah Baines’s arms.

‘Ms Baines?’ Dudley was the first to reach her. ‘Can we have a word?’

‘I’ve already spoken with the police. I’m busy.’

‘But less busy than you were, or so I understand.’

Sarah stopped what she was doing and set the wheelbarrow down. She looked at them with sullen hostility, as if she was only looking for an excuse to start a fight. ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

‘Well, you got fired by Giles Kenworthy, didn’t you? The same weekend he got murdered!’ Dudley made it sound as if the two events were an extraordinary coincidence.

Sarah sneered at him. ‘You think I had something to do with it?’ Her voice was hard-edged, pitiless.

‘You knew about the crossbow in Roderick Browne’s garage. You were in and out all the time.’

‘Doesn’t mean I killed him.’ A wasp buzzed briefly around her head and she flicked it away. ‘Yes, I knew about the crossbow. Yes, I had access. But you think I’m stupid? You think I’d kill someone just because they gave me the push? I’ve got plenty of work here and I’m doing very nicely, thank you very much.’ It was warm out in the sun and she pulled off her gloves, revealing jagged nails stained with earth and nicotine. ‘Anyway, he wouldn’t have booted me out if it hadn’t been for his wife. The two of us got on all right, but she never liked me.’

‘She found you in his office.’

‘Did she tell you that?’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘I was in and out of that house all the time. I didn’t just do their garden. I was their electrician, their painter, their bloody cleaner when Miss Ping-Pong couldn’t be bothered to do it herself.’

‘That’s a bit racist,’ Dudley said.

‘That’s what Kenworthy called her. He didn’t even know her real name.’

‘You also killed dogs for them,’ Hawthorne remarked, speaking for the first time.

Baines gave Hawthorne an ugly look, taking it as a personal insult. ‘That’s a lie,’ she said. ‘I never touched Mrs Winslow’s dog. Why would I have done that? I’d never have hurt any animal, even if Giles Kenworthy told me to. And he didn’t. Who are you, anyway? What gives you the right to ask me questions?’

‘Giles Kenworthy lost a Rolex,’ Dudley said.

‘He was careless. But he was rich enough. He could buy another.’

‘How long were you in prison?’ Hawthorne asked.

The question had come out of nowhere, but it was a blow that landed. Sarah looked around her as if she was afraid someone might have heard. ‘Who told you that?’ she demanded.

‘You did, Sarah, with those tattoos of yours. That’s not ink under your skin, is it? There’s no proper ink in the nick. I’d say it’s soot from burnt hair grease or maybe burnt plastic mixed with water and alcohol. And those designs you’ve chosen! A lot of inmates have a dice on their arm. It means they’re prepared to take risks. And the spider’s web . . . it’s the prison that traps the spider. Out of interest, how long were you in for?’