“Oh my God!” A feminine voice suddenly screeched.
Tuppence jerked in shock and looked up into the horrified face of Mrs Girdling, a devout Christian and notorious gossip, who was standing in the middle of the road leading to the village. Mrs Girdling was clutching her shawl to her chest and staring at Tuppence and Mr Lewis in abject horror.
“It wasn’t me,” Tuppence whispered, her eyes wide with horror. She knew from the look on Mrs Girdling’s face exactly what she was thinking. “I didn’t do this.” Tuppence pointed to Mr Lewis as she stood up, but Mrs Girdling was already running down the road toward Tipton Hollow to get help. “Damn.”
Tuppence struggled to remain on her feet. “What do I do?” she whispered mournfully, staring down at the body in dismay. It wasn’t until she looked at the ground that she was standing on that she realised what had terrorised Mrs Girdling so much. Tuppence’s hands and dress were covered in blood. Mr Lewis’s blood. Tuppence stared down at her reddened hands as if she had never seen them before. It took her a moment to question why her hands were so bloodied when she hadn’t touched the body. She looked around for the source of the blood because she knew it couldn’t be hers.
“The ground is saturated with his blood,” she whispered. Struggling to absorb the enormity of her situation, Tuppence stood perfectly still as if lost in a trance. “I touched the ground that is saturated with his blood.”
With Tipton Hollow village only a mile away, it didn’t take long for Mark Bosville to be summoned. The heavy pounding in his front door propelled him out of his seat at the breakfast table and had him yanking his door open within seconds. It took some soothing to get Mrs Girdling to tell him what had happened, and even then, all Mark could get out of the hysterical woman was that something had happened to Tuppence. He left a terrified Harriett murmuring nonsense to Mrs Girdling while watching over the children and yanked his jacket on while racing down the street.
He found Tuppence standing over Mr Lewis’s dead body, covered in blood while looking shocked and pale. “What happened?” he demanded without preamble.
When Tuppence didn’t answer him, Mark knelt beside the corpse. He cursed when he recognised Mr Lewis. Mark quickly studied the body. “He has been dead for an hour or two. Rigor mortis has already set in. How long has he been like this?” He looked up at Tuppence when his questions were met with stony silence.
Tuppence blinked at him as if she hadn’t heard him. She could see Mark’s mouth move but had no idea what he had just said. All she could do was stare numbly at him and then back down at her hands as if struggling to comprehend where the blood had come from.
“Tuppence?” When she still didn’t answer, Mark grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her roughly to snap her out of her daze. He was alarmed by just how cold she was and wondered how long she had been standing outside with the body. “How long has he been like this?”
“I don’t know,” Tuppence whispered. She struggled to get her lips to move. Her mind just couldn’t form words.
“How long have you been here?”
Tuppence blinked and looked up at him. She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Did you find him this morning? Just now? You rise early to feed the cattle. Did you find him before dawn?” Mark pressed.
“I-I don’t know,” Tuppence whispered. “I f-found him. On my farm.”
“Yes, I know,” Mark replied, heaving a sigh. He was stuck because he couldn’t leave Tuppence by herself in the state that she was in but needed to fetch help, preferably in the form of his assistant, Detective Edward Calger. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Mark sighed. “Look, just go home. Can you do that?”
Tuppence looked blankly at him. “He is dead. M-Mr Lewis. He is dead.”
“Is this one of your knives?”
“What?”
“Tuppence, is this one of your knives?” Mark pointed to the handle protruding from Mr Lewis’s back.
Tuppence hated to have to even look at it but when she did, she recognised it immediately. “It is one I usually keep in my barn,” she whispered. “It was beside the door. I use it to tear open bags and cut twine.”
“So, it’s your knife?” Mark pressed, feeling sicker by the moment. He started to panic. Deep inside, he knew the evidence was stacking up against her and dreaded what the day had in store for them both.
Tuppence nodded.
“When did you last see it?”
“I-I don’t know. I didn’t use it yesterday. I went – out,” Tuppence whispered, struggling to remember.
“When did you last use it?”
“I-I don’t know,” Tuppence shrugged. “The day before yesterday, I suppose. It was in the barn.” She knew she was repeating herself, but Mark didn’t chide her for it.
“And you have no idea how he got here?” Mark pointed to the body.