Harriett (The Tipton Hollow 1)

“I don’t know, but it has to be severe to shake Harriett in such a way. She isn’t usually unnerved like that.” Mark couldn’t remember her being so shaken before, not even when she had found Mr Montague’s body.

“Good afternoon, Miss Smethwick,” Mark called as they passed the older woman who was carrying a basket of coal in the opposite direction. Her purposeful strides were matched with the dark glare she gave him as she rather curtly nodded as she scurried past.

They turned to watch her go. Mark was faintly impressed with the spritely way the woman, who was in her seventies, hurried through her day. He could only wish that he was so agile when he reached his old age.

“We were going to interview her this morning,” Isaac drawled. They had called by the ageing spinster’s house just after nine that morning, only to find the house empty once again. “Do you want to go after her?”

Mark contemplated following the woman home but then shook his head. He desperately needed to go back to Harriett and make sure that she was alright.

“We will go once we have found out what Miss Haversham has discovered. At least we know now that Miss Smethwick is back in the village. We will go around to hers once we have left the tea shop.”

“Wait!” Isaac growled and turned to study the window display of the general store. When Mark drew alongside, he looked up at the perfect view of the Coal Merchant’s yard directly behind them. “Move to stand beside me, Mark, and look at the reflection in the window. What do you see?”

Mark scowled at him and studied the row of houses for several moments before his gaze was drawn to the large green doors of Brewster’s Coal Merchants. There, in the far corner of the yard, under a large open-fronted storage barn was a large, perfectly black, carriage. He didn’t need to search the yard to know that somewhere nearby would be an equally large, very black horse.

“Jesus,” Mark whispered. He longed to turn around, march across the road and go and search the building, yard and surrounding area but, given that the carriage had just been seen used, daren’t alert the driver to the fact that they had been discovered.

“What do you want to do?”

“Right now, I think that we ignore it. We will arrange for Fred to keep watch. I want to see who comes and fetches it. They have a lot of questions to answer.”

Neither man even looked at the yard as they passed and appeared to be deep in conversation as they returned to Harriett. Within minutes of their return they had dispatched Bobby to find Fred.

“Do you want me to go and question the coal merchant?” Isaac growled as he hungrily eyed the large plate of cakes on the table in the back room of the tea shop.

“I will do it later.”

The men sat down and helped themselves while Babette and Harriett began to close the shop. As soon as the last patron had left and the closed sign had been flipped over, Harriett recounted Miss Haversham’s revelation.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Mark was thoughtful when he followed Harriett into the sitting room at the back of 29 Daventry Street an hour later. Given the latest revelations about Miss Smethwick, he needed to question Harriett a bit more before he decided whether to pay the old woman a visit with Isaac, or the rest of Great Tipton Constabulary behind him.

He took what was rapidly becoming his habitual seat at the table while Harriett removed her cloak and put a pot of water on to boil. It seemed a strangely domesticated scene; one that he had never considered before, but it felt eminently right, entirely comfortable, and something he would be happy to do time and time again.

“I think that you have to be very careful around Miss Smethwick,” Mark sighed. He didn’t want her to be terrified of going out, just wary about Miss Smethwick. Right now Miss Haversham’s suspicious, confirmed as accurate by Harriett and Babette, was the only valuable piece of information they had, and it pointed to the fact that Miss Smethwick had something to do with the threats at the séance and the attempt on Harriett’s life. Unfortunately, it also looked as though she was involved in the murders although, as yet, he couldn’t prove it or link it all together.

“What do you think the person who is pretending to be Miss Smethwick has done with the real one?”

Mark looked at her pointedly over the table. “I think that we have to take into account the fact that there have been two murders here, Harriett. The only leads I have are the threat that was issued at the séance table, and the reports that Miss Smethwick has recently grown considerably younger.” He rose to lift the kettle off the stove when it began to bubble and carefully poured the steaming water into the teapot before he sat back down. “Can you remember when you last saw the old Miss Smethwick?”

After several moments, Harriett shook her head. She honestly couldn’t remember.

“Miss Smethwick has always been rather odd, you understand. She is a spinster; has never married and, although she isn’t cruel, has never been particularly friendly to children who played in the street outside her house. Everyone generally keeps a wary distance. She has a way of being rather spiteful with her comments, so I don’t usually stand and chat with her. I think – and this is only an approximation, you understand – that the first time I thought she seemed a little odd was about three or four months ago. Whereupon once she used to stand and chat to Mr Abernathy on the high street, she now scurries past and keeps her head down. Along with the facial blemish, and her unlined face, I think that the woman in Miss Smethwick’s house is not the old woman at all.”

“Does Miss Smethwick still go to church?”

Harriett nodded. “But she sits at the back of the church and doesn’t take in her usual seat any more. It raised a few eyebrows when she first did it, but she was limping at the time and everyone put her seating choice down to the fact that she didn’t want to walk very far.”

“Does she have any relatives in the village, or the surrounding area?”

Harriett shook her head. “I think that she does have someone who visits occasionally, but they live miles away and certainly haven’t been around of late, I don’t think.”

“So, it’s about three or four months ago that you can recall the old Miss Smethwick?” Mark puffed out his cheeks and took a sip of his tea.

The sudden rattle of the front door was accompanied by the rapid clip of footsteps as Babette returned home.

“Tea?” Harriett called when Babette didn’t immediately appear in the doorway.