Tuppence (The Tipton Hollow 3)

Tuppence lapsed into stunned silence and stared at him as if she had no idea who he was. “You really think I killed him, don’t you?”

He looked at her square in the eye. “I think that you have to find yourself a good solicitor to help you get out of this mess, Tuppence. Unless you can prove you didn’t do it, you are likely to hang for this.”

Tuppence sucked in a deep breath but couldn’t form words. She hadn’t contemplated just how far this would go. Having to face Mark’s accusations in the middle of a muddy field was one thing, but to think of having to go court, and have her name dragged out before the newspapers, the court, witnesses, and be suspected of murder while facing being hung for a crime she hadn’t committed was simply horrifying. She was ruined. She would never recover in mind, reputation, or character.

In that moment, Tuppence knew that her life at Hilltop Farm was over. Her life in Tipton Hollow was over. What struck her more deeply than the thought that she was going to be carted off to jail was the fact that she couldn’t be sure that she was sorry that she couldn’t have her old life back now.

“God, I hate you,” Tuppence hissed at Mark.

Mark was hit with a huge wave of regret for what he had to do. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, but had to arrest her anyway.

Tuppence couldn’t force herself to speak to him again. Thankfully, she was spared having to. Harriett had sent reinforcements in the form of her neighbour, Walter Delvaney, who jogged up the street toward them and promptly announced: “Paul has gone to notify your detective friend. He will be back in a thrice. The butcher has taken him in his cart.”

“Keep the locals away,” Mark ordered with a nod toward the group of people walking toward them. “I don’t want spectators around here.”

Walter studied Tuppence for a few moments but didn’t speak to her. Instead, after one dark look at the corpse, he went to stop the locals. Whatever he said caused them to stop, but while they didn’t venture any closer, they didn’t leave either and remained where they were to watch what was happening.

Tuppence couldn’t bring herself to look at them. She knew far too many faces and could sense their hostility. “God, they think I did it too. They hate me,” she whispered, more to herself than to Mark.

“They think you are a killer,” Mark replied bluntly. “Just don’t look at them and don’t move. They will stay away.”

Tuppence promptly turned her back on them but then found herself facing the corpse. She stared off into the distance and didn’t say anything else for what seemed like an age.

“Don’t call Lord Aldridge,” Tuppence whispered eventually, her eyes dull, her voice monotonous.

When Mark glanced up at her he was alarmed at how lifeless she looked. Her dark brown eyes were staring out of a face that had was alarmingly pale, and almost wooden. With her long hair hanging lankly around her thin shoulders, Tuppence looked so very fragile that Mark began to worry about her health.

“Have you had problems around here lately?” he asked quietly.

Tuppence blinked at him but didn’t speak. She didn’t see the point of trying to defend herself. Nothing she could say would get her out of this situation, not now that even Mark didn’t believe her.

Look how easily he dismissed what I said about Angus Richmond.

“I have to get someone to look after the farm,” Mark informed her briskly. “It is my job to make sure that the animals don’t starve. Do you have any relations who could come and run the farm in your absence?”

“Not near here, no,” Tuppence whispered. Her cousin, Frank, hated the farm and hardly ever visited. He wouldn’t agree to help her even if Mark asked him.

As he studied the lost expression on Tuppence’s face, Mark felt his first pang of doubt start to creep in. In the vast open space of the huge field, Tuppence looked small, fragile, dainty. At five feet five inches, and of a slender build, she didn’t appear to have the strength that would be needed to shove a long knife into a burly man’s back. Curiously, his gaze returned to the corpse at their feet. He leant forward and gently pulled the knife out of the dead man’s back. Beneath his hand he felt the knife grate against bone and knew that it would have taken some considerable force to be shoved into a man up to the hilt like it was. The blade was so long that Mark wondered if the tip of the blade had come out of the dead man’s chest. He was impatient to read what the Coroner put into his report but wouldn’t be at all surprised to have it confirmed that Tuppence couldn’t have been the killer. That being the case, Tuppence herself was in grave danger.

When Tuppence shivered, but seemed oblivious to the fact that she was cold and wet, Mark shrugged out of his jacket and held it out to her but when he reached out toward her, Tuppence flinched and jerked away. The closed expression on her face was horrible and made him hesitate.

“Has someone threatened you lately?” Mark whispered, not daring to venture closer.

“I told you,” Tuppence bit out. “Angus Richmond.”

“He threatened you.”

“He told me to brace myself. Yesterday. Last night, there were noises. A man kept calling my name and running around the farm. He

was trying to scare me.”

“Did you see him? Was it Mr Lewis?”

“It wasn’t Mr Lewis. I didn’t recognise the voice.”

“Did you see him?”

“No.”