Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
“People don’t insult my lemon cake,” Vivienne replied, unbuttoning her shocking pink cardigan. “I don’t get that recipe wrong. Ash, dear.” She kissed her cheek and looked at me. “You must be the famous Lottie.”
“Famous might be an overstatement,” I said.
Vivienne popped her light pink lips. “Nope. All I’ve heard is about you and that horrid man dying in the bed and breakfast. Oh, I’m terribly sorry about your grandfather, dear. He was a real gentleman.”
“You’d know,” a third voice said. “Although he wasn’t with me.”
“Betty!” came a fourth voice, but this one was accompanied by the appearance of two similar-looking ladies, both with perfectly curled white hair cut short. “You can’t say that in front of his granddaughter. She’s having a nightmare.”
“You’re right, Barb,” said Betty, turning to me. “Sorry, Lottie, dear.”
“Um, it’s okay,” I replied slowly.
“We do miss him ever so much.” Barb sighed. “He was the life and soul of the bingo club.”
Vivienne nodded. “We stopped going when he moved to live with you. Bloody boring sods there without him. Nobody called the balls like he did.”
That was quite the visual.
Ash bit back a laugh. “Everything’s ready for you, ladies.”
“Thank you, dear,” Barb said, patting her shoulder.
All four ladies walked over to the round table Ash had set up for them and located their garden gnomes—but not without Betty and Barb arguing over whose gnome was whose.
“Twins,” Ash whispered to me, leaning on the counter next to me. “Non-identical, but I don’t think they’ve gone a day in their life without bickering.”
“I think I remember them,” I replied. “Didn’t they once try to start a guerrilla gardening movement?”
“Yep. It was successful, too. That’s how the flowers in the town square came about. The council decided to take control of it instead of letting them throw seeds everywhere and have sunflowers growing through the cracks in the pavement. Not that it stopped them, mind you.”
“Huh. I suppose it doesn’t look good for the council if there’s a flower field in the middle of the high street.”
“Exactly. Viv moved here a few years ago. Came on holiday to visit her grandkids and never left,” Ash explained. “She got adopted into their little trio, and now she and Granny bicker over everything and anything. They donated cakes to the last bake sale for the hospice and ended up not speaking for a week over made the better Victoria sponge.”
“Healthy competition isn’t a bad thing,” I said slowly. “But that’s perhaps a little overzealous.”
“Indeed.” She eyed the group. “Watch this.”
“Watch what?”
“So, who do you think killed Declan Tierney?” Ash asked loudly, cutting into their conversation.
All four women turned to us, wearing expressions of varying levels of intrigue.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Ash said, tapping her fingers against the counter. “You know the rules. You can host your weekly shit-talk here for free, but you have to share what you know with me.”
“Guy Quinn,” Barb said. “The land the old secondary school is on is up for sale, and Guy has butted heads with Tierney more than once. It’s supposed to be for public use and Guy wants to sell to a holiday park company instead, but Tierney offered more money. Big issues.”
“No.” Betty clicked her tongue as she picked up her wine glass. “The Swanns out at Swann Farm. He had a bust up with Michael Swann not long ago. The police were called and everything. I wouldn’t put it past Michael to get rid of him.”
“His business partner,” Vivienne said, focusing on painting her little gnome’s face, complete with occasionally sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. “Alan wanted out of the company after all the legal issues, but Tierney refused to pay what it was worth. They’ve been having a very tough time of it, from what I hear. Legal action and all sorts.”
I shared a look with Ash.
That was the most promising one yet.
“His wife,” Gwen declared.
We all stared at her.
“His wife? Stephanie?” Barb asked. “Haven’t they been married for over ten years?”
“They’re divorcing, and she’s living with someone else. A friend, she says,” Gwen continued with a twinkle in her eye. “Last I heard, Declan was trying to claim adultery to get out of giving her what she was due in the divorce. The house, a bucket load of money, and part of the company. Of course, with him dead, she presumably gets it all.”
“I wonder how that’ll shake out with Alan,” Viv mused. “He doesn’t get along with Stephanie at all, and she’ll probably pay him more than his share just to get rid of him, especially since he wants out anyway.”
I met Ash’s gaze.
“Bingo,” she whispered.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The problem with this sleuthing business is that I was not, sadly, Rosemary Boxer or Laura Thyme.
They were also entirely fictional characters, but that was beside the point. I didn’t know a damn thing about where to start with this, and Ash had to be at the shop all day because she had a couple of kids’ ceramics sessions booked in.