Page 6 of Murder in the Winter Woods (Julia Bird Mysteries #8)

Julia was showered and dressed and standing in front of the bathroom mirror applying a dash of lipstick – the final task of her minimalist morning routine – when the doorbell rang. She looked at her watch. Nine thirty exactly. One thing about Brendan Blunt, he was as punctual as the sunrise.

Julia smacked her lips together in front of the mirror, tossed the lipstick down and shouted: ‘Coming!’ Not that Brendan would be able to hear her above Jake’s excited, high-pitched barking.

‘Jake, be quiet!’ she instructed, to no avail. It was a wonder she had two intact eardrums, frankly.

Jake was out of the door the second it cracked open, hurtling around Brendan’s ankles, smacking his legs with his tail.

The young man patted him, trying to calm him down. ‘There’s a good chap. There you go, Jakey. I’m pleased to see you too.’

When the dog had calmed down sufficiently for them to have a conversation, Brendan said, ‘Shall I get busy then, Mrs Bird? Johnny told me what needs doing, and I think I’ve got all the materials in the van.’

Brendan was the grandson of Johnny Blunt, who had been the handyman in the village as long as anyone could remember.

Possibly longer. Between the two Blunts, they maintained the fiction that Johnny was still in charge and he was training Brendan up to take over ‘one day, when I’m getting too old for it’.

In fact, Johnny was no longer nimble enough for a ladder.

When he was on site, he issued instructions from ground level.

He wasn’t often on site. In fact, he spent a large portion of the day in the Buttered Scone.

Brendan, who had been working as Johnny’s apprentice on weekends and holidays since his school days, and full-time for the two years since, did almost all of the work.

Julia suspected he took Johnny’s instructions more from kindness than necessity.

He had, to all intents and purposes, taken over, but you wouldn’t say as much to Johnny Blunt, not if you knew what was good for you.

Julia and Brendan walked over to the chicken run. The day was mild and there was no rain forecast – good DIY weather, fortunately. The chicken run was being ‘winterised’. This, Julia considered an awful term, but it seemed to have entered the modern lexicon and there was nothing to be done.

‘The water’s getting in, and it’s not good for them,’ she explained to the young handyman.

‘I’ll make a little gutter there,’ Brendan said, pointing. ‘Just to drain the rainwater away so it doesn’t make a lot of mud around the chooks.’

‘Good. Chickens can stand a bit of cold, what with their nice warm feathers, but they don’t like to be soggy. And the roof?’

‘Johnny’s given me something to give them some more insulation.’

‘Lovely, thank you, Brendan. Will you check the nesting boxes while you’re here? Make sure they are sturdy?’

‘Will do, Mrs B. With that and some fresh warm bedding, they’ll be as snug as anything.’

‘I’ll leave you to it. You know where to find me if you want to chat about anything, or if you fancy a cup of tea.’

Julia fed the animals and, to the not-unpleasant sound of Brendan’s hammering, ate her own breakfast of oats topped with farm yoghurt, banana and the honey given to her by Matthew and Hester, her beekeeping neighbours.

It always made her smile to know that her breakfast honey was made by bees who had undoubtedly buzzed happily in her own poppies and hollyhocks, collecting pollen.

Julia had never been what one might call ‘a morning person’.

Getting the morning chores done, Jess off to school in time for the first bell and herself to work had always felt like a challenge that she managed to complete imperfectly, in a rush and just in the nick of time.

But to her surprise and delight, Berrywick had brought out the early bird in her (either that or it was some mysterious post-sixty development – there were certainly enough of those).

She enjoyed the industrious mornings in the country – feeding Jake, Chaplin the cat and the chickens; applying her fresh brain to the morning’s word games; answering calls and emails; making lists and plans; and lingering over the newspaper and breakfast.

Today, her mind was on her conversation with Jim the day before.

She had quite a clear day ahead, and decided to start doing some preparatory work on the Feel-Good Christmas message.

No time like the present. Jim would probably have finished the obituary by now – assuming he’d found a few more contributors – and would be ready to get onto the next story.

It was surprising that he’d encountered such muted enthusiasm for Lewis.

In Julia’s experience, the opposite effect usually came into play when someone died.

People couldn’t say enough nice things about them, producing glowing reports and cherished memories, even if the real live person had been less than a saint.

Many was the obituary or eulogy that was met with raised eyebrows and surprised expressions.

But when it came to Lewis, even sweet old Dora from the sweet shop hadn’t been able to drum up a reasonably sincere compliment.

She was turning this over in her head when Brendan knocked on the door. ‘Sorry to disturb, Mrs B, but could you keep Jake inside? He’s a lovely boy but he’s making it a tad difficult to get my work done.’

‘Oh dear, what’s he doing?’

‘He wants to play. He’s trying to help me with the gutter, and he gets weird when I go near the chickens, especially the big one.’

‘That would be Henny Penny. They have a thing going. I’ll come and get him.’

Outside, she found Jake scratching enthusiastically at the area where Brendan had been digging a channel. Henny Penny sat close by, watching with her beady little eyes. When Jake saw the humans, he leapt up and turned in circles.

‘I’ll take him for a walk,’ said Julia, who was familiar with this mad excitement and knew that it wouldn’t settle until she gave him a distraction. ‘It’ll give you some peace and quiet, and hopefully tire him out. Come on, Jake.’

He was reluctant to leave the site of so much entertainment, but when she took his lead from its hook by the door, the faintest clink of the chain summoned him instantly. He skidded to a halt at her feet. She clipped on the lead.

‘We’re off,’ she called to Brendan. ‘I’ve left the door open, help yourself to tea and biscuits.’

Julia had no particular route in mind. She let her feet and her dog lead the way, turning right out of the gate in the direction of the river.

They followed the path along the water, away from the village.

The early-morning joggers and dog walkers had finished their exercise and moved on to their daytime pursuits, and there were few people out enjoying the crisp winter air.

They passed a mum with a tiny baby attached to her in a sling, its head – the size of an orange – just visible in a soft yellow beanie.

They passed old Aunt Edna, who didn’t return Julia’s greeting, but gave Jake a stern look and a raised eyebrow.

He hung back to ensure that Julia was positioned between him and the old woman.

It was so pleasant out, and she had so much buzzing around her head, that Julia walked further than she’d intended.

It was only when she spotted Dora’s little sweet shop that she realised quite how far they’d come.

She stopped and surveyed the little shop, hardly bigger than a caravan, with a red and white sign saying simply Sweeties .

How odd that she’d been thinking about Dora, after what Jim had said, and she’d found herself right outside her shop.

It almost seemed – Julia wasn’t a superstitious woman, and not one to see signs in tea leaves or faces in clouds – but it almost seemed like she was meant to find herself here.

Perhaps she was meant to have a sweet little treat.

And if that led to an interesting chat, well, there was nothing that Julia could do about that.

‘You know what, Jake?’ she said. ‘I think I might fancy a humbug.’

She left Jake outside, with strict instructions to sit.

He watched her through the open door. The shop was so tiny that he was only a few steps away from her.

Once inside, Julia marvelled as always at the sheer comprehensiveness of the sweetie offering in the minute space.

They were all there – mint humbugs, sherbet lemons, pear drops, acid drops, jelly babies and dolly mixtures, even the rhubarb and custard sweets you hardly ever saw these days.

And then there were the chocolates, and the crisps.

Dora had, of course, decorated the shop for Christmas, with a Christmas tree so large in proportion to the shop that Julia didn’t know quite how it fit.

It was hung with classic candy canes and ribbons, entirely in keeping with the old-fashioned beauty of the shop.

Dora was at the counter. She peered round the tree, and her friendly, pink-cheeked face broke into a smile when she saw Julia.

‘Well, this is a nice surprise,’ she said. ‘Where are you off to, on a Thursday morning?’

‘Jake and I are just out for a walk. And I thought, you know what? I could gobble up a humbug.’

‘Well, you’ve come to the right place for humbugs.’

Dora took a little packet and scooped sweets into it until Julia held up her hand and said, ‘Enough! I shouldn’t be having too much sugar.’

‘I know they say it’s not good for you,’ Dora said, ‘but I think, well, life is short, you might as well enjoy yourself.’ Dora’s short, round figure and cheerful demeanour attested to this position, and it had to be said she looked very well with her healthy colour and her halo of white curls.

‘You are so right, Dora. Who knows what tomorrow brings? I mean, look at Lewis Band, walking along the lane in the woods and a car hits him out of the blue. Tragic.’

Julia popped a humbug into her mouth and waited.

‘Yes, an unfortunate thing that was,’ said Dora, not looking especially upset. But then she frowned and added, ‘Poor Coral.’

‘Did you know them?’ Julia asked, casually.

‘A little. I knew him quite well when he was younger. He was the same age as my little sister, Janice. That was a long time ago. And people change, don’t they?’

This struck Julia as a rather odd observation, although a true one. ‘They certainly do. What was he like?’

Dora glanced down at her hands, and then looked at Julia, her blue eyes wide.

‘If I have to be honest, Julia, I didn’t like him back in the day.

He didn’t do right by Janice. In fact, he did her wrong.

But I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, and it was a long time ago. And things change, don’t they?’

‘They do indeed…What sort of things do you mean?’

‘Ah, well. Men and women. Boys and girls. If a chap got a bit handsy, a bit pushy, you didn’t make a thing of it back then. Not like today, with all the #MeToo.’

‘Well, I’d say it’s probably better these days, wouldn’t you?

Hopefully people have learned to behave with kindness and respect.

And face the consequences when they don’t.

’ Julia wondered if the wrong that Lewis had done Janice was of the face-the-consequences variety, or of the things-were-different-then variety.

Admittedly, it was often one and the same.

‘Oh, yes. Back then, you’d warn off your girlfriends if a chap wasn’t good with being told no. Make sure you weren’t caught in a tricky situation alone. But you didn’t say anything, not in public.’

Dora looked uncharacteristically pensive – sad, even – and then she said: ‘Ah, well, he was thirty-five years with Coral, a good husband, an upstanding member of the community. So he did all right, I suppose. Everyone deserves a chance to change and to do better.’

‘Yes, yes they do.’ Julia spotted the Walnut Whips on the shelf behind Dora. ‘Could I have two of those, please?’ she said, pointing. ‘You don’t often see them these days, and they’re Sean’s favourite.’

‘A classic,’ Dora said, reaching for them.

‘We’re going to see a film this weekend. In an actual cinema, if you can believe it. I’ll bring these along as a treat,’ said Julia. ‘Now, what do I owe you?’