Page 13 of Murder in the Winter Woods (Julia Bird Mysteries #8)
Hester was outside at the beehives, wandering around in a slow, vague sort of way, talking to herself. The morning was chilly, and she was wearing an ancient olive green winter coat and fleece-lined boots over pale blue pyjamas dotted with little cartoon daisies.
Julia felt awkward, disturbing her grieving neighbour in such an undignified outfit, and seemingly absorbed in whatever odd thing it was that she was doing.
Julia hesitated, wondering if she should return to her own house and come back later.
But in her moment of hesitation, Hester turned towards her and beckoned.
Julia walked over the damp grass. Hester put a finger to her lips and whispered: ‘Shhhh. I’m telling the bees.
’ She turned back to the closest hive and laid her hands on its top, muttering in a low drone.
Julia stood still, and in the morning quiet she could hear a soft hum from inside the bee box.
Hester took what looked like a large black handkerchief or serviette from the pocket of her coat and draped it over the hive.
‘Bees, bees…’ came her droning voice, a little louder. ‘I come to you with sad news.’
Her voice dropped again, and Julia could no longer hear what she was saying, just the soothing, solemn tones.
She felt as if she were witnessing a spell being cast, or some ancient ritual enacted.
Something that shouldn’t be disturbed or questioned.
Unless, perhaps, Hester had gone mad with grief, which seemed not impossible.
Minutes passed, her voice a low monotone. and Hester turned away from the boxes, leaving the black handkerchief in its place atop the hive. She walked slowly towards the house, Julia falling into step beside her.
‘You have to tell the bees when there’s important news in the family. Births and deaths particularly.’ Hester’s voice had lost its mystical crooning quality and now sounded quite matter-of-fact.
Julia nodded, uncharacteristically at a loss for words.
‘Bees are part of the family, you know. They must be informed. I remember when my mum told them Dad had passed, she went out and broke the news. She was from the old school, Mum, she sang her message. And when my Violet was born, oh my, but weren’t the bees all a-buzz when I told them!
Such a joyous occasion, and the honey that year was the richest and sweetest I’ve known.
You can’t imagine.’ Hester’s eyes shone at the happy recollection, but only for a moment.
Her face softened and sagged. ‘And now poor Matthew. The bees won’t be happy at all. I won’t be happy. It’s…It’s…’
‘It’s so awful Hester, just tragic,’ Julia said. ‘I’m so very sorry for your terrible loss.’
Hester stopped and wrung her hands together in a gesture of hopelessness and said simply: ‘I don’t know what to do.’
Julia put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Of course you don’t. You have experienced a life-changing, earth-shattering event. Nothing feels right, or real.’
‘That’s exactly it. I keep thinking I made a mistake. It can’t be right. He’ll walk in here, muttering about the latest argument he had with the vegans.’
Julia was struck dumb by the bizarre turn the conversation had taken. After a moment, she managed to ask, ‘The vegans?’
‘The vegans at the market. The ones selling the nut butters. They call themselves the Butter Nuts. They’ve been going on at us about the bees.’
‘The bees?’
Julia, it seemed, could only parrot the last two words of Hester’s sentences.
Hester frowned at Julia as if she was the one being obtuse. ‘The vegans at the market have been shouting at us about the bees. They say we’re exploiting them. Exploiting them! I’ve never heard such nonsense. We love the bees. We look after them.’
‘Ah, well. People do have some funny ideas, don’t they? But they shouldn’t shout at you, that’s not nice.’
‘The Butter Nuts are not nice people,’ Hester said. ‘They’re very shouty. One of them especially. Poppy, her name is. Poppy . I ask you. Such a pretty name for such an ugly person. She was always shouting and yelling and badgering us. It was likely her that did it.’
The conversation seemed to be veering in a strange direction, a direction Julia didn’t want to prolong, but she couldn’t help but ask: ‘Did what?’
‘Killed Matthew,’ said Hester, and she walked through the kitchen door, into her house.
Julia had only been inside Hester’s house once or twice, and each time she had found the experience distinctly odd.
Their houses were two of three identical houses built in a short row, Julia’s at the end of the row, on the far right as viewed from the road, and Hester’s next door.
They had once been the outbuildings of a big house, accommodation for servants or workers.
Each house had a small front garden onto the road, and a bigger garden behind, with a door out from the kitchen.
The floorplan of each house was exactly the same – Hester’s front door was where Julia’s front door was, with Hester’s kitchen window overlooking her back garden just as Julia’s did hers – but the overall impression was completely different.
Hester’s door was painted yellow, and through the window the four beehives could be spotted.
Julia’s door was varnished wood, and her kitchen window looked onto her vegetable patch and her chicken run.
Hester’s house was more rustic, Julia’s a little tidier.
Their fridges were in different corners, but their kitchen tables were positioned in the same place.
It was there at Hester’s kitchen table that the two women were seated now, drinking big hot mugs of elderflower tea, generously sweetened with honey from the hives outside the window.
‘I don’t mean they killed him, killed him,’ Hester now explained.
‘Not on purpose. But they upset him with all their harassment. They put signs up and gave out little pamphlets about the bees and the honey. They shouted the most awful things – “You people should die like the bees…” Things like that. “Humans like you should be going extinct.” I tried to ignore them, the idiots, but they really got to Matthew. And in the Christmas season, we have been at the same markets, so we have had to put up with their harassment every week. It drove him mad, because it was so unfair and untrue. Beekeeping is actually benefitting both bees and wildlife in general and there are studies to prove it. Matthew was a devoted beekeeper.’
‘That must have been very upsetting.’
‘The sad thing is, the last phone call we had, on the night he died, he told me that that Poppy woman had been at him again. Shouting, accusing, disturbing the customers. I keep thinking how horrible his last market session was. And wondering if he was so upset and distracted by the Butter Nuts, that he didn’t see the car that was coming towards him.
That they caused his death in some way.’
‘Did you tell the police about them? About the things they said?’ Julia asked.
‘No, I didn’t. It’s not as if they ever did anything to us.
They are just rude and unkind and shouty.
And, frankly, Poppy did seem a little mad.
’ Hester sighed and said, ‘I’ve got myself rather worked up.
I’m just being silly. I will never know what Matthew was thinking when he went out to his car to drive home.
Probably nothing much: he would have had a long day at the market, and was carrying the crates back to the car.
I doubt he had a thought for the silly Butter Nuts.
He was probably just thinking about coming home to me. ’ Hester’s eyes filled up with tears.
‘Sean and I saw him, Hester,’ Julia said gently. ‘We spoke to him. He was thinking about coming home to you – he said so. He knew that you would be worrying.’
‘He was always worrying about me.’ Hester paused. ‘You found him, I believe.’
‘Yes.’ Julia wasn’t sure what else to say, so she reached across and squeezed Hester’s hand.
‘Could you tell me how you think this could have happened?’
Julia took a deep breath. ‘It was quite dark in the car park. There was no moon last night and all the Christmas lights were turned off already. There were just a few lights left on at the market for the stallholders who were still packing up their wares, but the parking was very gloomy. I suppose whoever hit Matthew just didn’t see him.
And if he saw them, he didn’t get out of the way in time.
Everyone was eager to get home, they might have been driving too fast. It was a horrible accident. ’
But as she said this, Julia was imagining the scene.
Anyone leaving a dark car park would presumably have their headlights on, Julia thought.
In which case, Matthew would have been able to see them, and they would have seen him.
She didn’t mention this to Hester. There was no sense in upsetting the grieving widow further with her questions and theories.
DI Hayley Gibson and her team would look into all of that.
‘The thing I don’t understand,’ said Hester sadly, ‘is how they could have just driven off and left him there.’
‘It’s unimaginable,’ said Julia. ‘Absolutely unimaginable. I can only think that they panicked. They got scared.’
‘Especially if they’d been drinking.’
‘That could have been a factor.’ This conversation had a horrible sense of déjà vu. Just a week ago, she’d been having an eerily similar one about Lewis’s accident.
‘But to hit someone, and drive off…’ said Hester with a shudder. ‘And leave that person to…’ She hesitated, as if she couldn’t bear to say the words.
Julia looked at her expectantly.
Hester just shook her head, and reached for the teapot: ‘More tea?’