Deadly Clementine

  HIS

  DEADLY

  CLEMENTINE

  by

  REBECCA KING

  © 2019 by Rebecca King

  The moral right of R L King to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  UNREQUITED LOVE

  MISS FLORENTINE’S SCHOOL FOR INVESTIGATORS

  DUTY OR DISHONOUR

  MURDER AT HYNDE HOUSE

  THE LOCAL HEROES SERIES (STAR ELITE)

  TUPPENCE

  OTHER BOOKS BY REBECCA KING

  CHAPTER ONE

  Clementine slowly lowered her sewing and stared at the visitor through the doorway of the sitting room. She pasted a polite expression on her face but was full of curiosity as she waited for her father to lead their unexpected arrival into the room. It was highly unusual for the vicar to call upon them at any time, especially since neither she nor her father went to church very much. What on earth might draw him to call upon them today was beyond her. Her curiosity swiftly turned to concern when she saw the grave look on his face, and she briefly wondered if he had come to impart some terrible news. His demeanour was brisk, almost jerky when he nodded at her before promptly dismissing her and turning to pierce her father, Cameron, with a worried look.

  “Please forgive the intrusion,” he gasped breathlessly. “I know it is most unusual for me to call by like this, but I simply must speak with you.”

  “Think nothing of it, my dear Reverend,” Cameron replied politely, urging the clergyman to sit down before he fell. He certainly looked as if he would if he remained upright any longer.

  The reverend slumped into a chair with a dull thud. The rush of breath whooshing past his lips was heavy as the dark frown on his brow.

  “How can I help you?” Cameron asked after a momentary pause to give the vicar the time to gather his thoughts and get his breath back. It was most concerning to see the usually cheery and unflappable clergyman so pale and shaken. “I say, have you run all the way here?”

  Cameron slid a look at his daughter, who dropped her sewing back into the basket at her feet and came over to join them before the fire.

  “Would you like a drink?” Clementine hesitated to ask.

  “Yes, yes, I think I would,” the vicar mumbled somewhat absently, as if he knew he shouldn’t but felt he ought.

  Seconds later, Clementine pressed a goblet of wine into his hand and perched cautiously on the edge of the chaise beside him. The vicar stared absently at it as he wandered through his own thoughts until he eventually seemed to realise where he was, and why he was there. His guilty expression was followed by a brief smile at Clementine, which flickered and disappeared again almost instantly. His worried gaze flew randomly around the room as if looking for inspiration.

  “Reverend?” Cameron prompted.

  “I am afraid I have some rather bad news,” the vicar announced, his usual unflappable manner having now vanished completely. Sliding the drink in his hands onto the small table beside him, he removed his handkerchief and dabbed at the sweat on his forehead with a shaking hand.

  Clementine’s brows rose when she saw the violent trembling of the man’s hand but struggled to find a way to console him seeing as she had no idea what was wrong.

  “How may we help you?” she asked gently. “What’s happened?”

  Reverend Ormstone looked contritely at her. “Oh, dear. It is so dreadful; such dreadful news, and about someone so young too.”

  Cameron leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. Even his brows had started to lower as his concern for the vicar, and this unnamed victim, grew.

  Reverend Ormstone looked anxiously around the room again. “I have to prepare my sermon for evensong,” he muttered as if he would rather do that than tell them his dire news.

  Clementine nodded, as if she was fully conversant with what this entailed. She shared a look at her father, and knew he was mentally shrugging at her. He had no clue what this was this was all about either.

  “I am sorry. Did you say you had some bad news?” her father interrupted, wondering if the vicar had come to them for inspiration.

  Reverend Ormstone slid a cautious look at Clementine. “Yes. Yes, I am afraid I have come to impart some bad news. It is most dreadful. Indeed, it is.”

  Clementine, who was about to start screaming with frustration, heaved a sigh but forced herself to remain patient. The vicar was prevaricating so much she suspected that by the time he had delivered his bad news whatever crises had happened would have been dealt with.

  “I am afraid that Mrs Walcott has been found dead this morning,” the clergyman suddenly burst out. Again, he yanked out his handkerchief and began to dab at the fresh sheen of sweat on his brow.

  “I beg your pardon?” Cameron gaped at him. “Mrs Walcott? Sally?”

  “Mrs W-Walcott,” Clementine whispered, her heart skipping a beat before seemingly settling in the pit of her stomach where it began to churn worriedly. She stared at the vicar in disbelief. “Sally Walcott. Are you sure?”

  Reverend Ormstone nodded. “I have just come from her house this morning. The neighbour called me, you see. She went around to see Sally about the arrangements for the Autumn Fair first thing this morning but couldn’t get Sally to answer the door.” The vicar coughed as if to punctuate an end to his rambling. “Anyway, Mrs Saunders let herself in with a key Sally had given her the last time she went to see her sister, Dorothy, and found poor Sally far beyond help.”

  The vicar allowed stunned disbelief to settle between Clementine and Cameron, who looked at each other for a few moments before they both refocused on the bearer of bad tidings.

  “What did she die of?” Cameron asked sadly, his voice low and hushed in reverence to the deceased.

  “It looks to have been some sort of seizure. Of course, I have blessed her soul and sent her on God’s most divine pathway,” the vicar informed them pompously.

  Clementine lifted a hand to halt the vicar’s clerical discourse. “I am sorry, but has the doctor been called?”

  Reverend Ormstone nodded jerkily again. He lifted the goblet of wine and downed it in one gulp before he unceremoniously swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. He then refocused on Clementine.

  “Yes. He says it looks like she had some sort of fit or seizure sometime yesterday evening. She had been gone most of the night. Anyway, she has gone, God rest her soul.” He lifted a sympathetic gaze at Clementine. “Seeing as you were working with her to organise the Autumn Fair, I thought you might need to know that our good Lord has seen fit to call her back to his fold.”

  Before he began a makeshift sermon, Clementine blinked at her father and repeated numbly: “Mrs W-Walcott, Sally, dead?”

  “How? I mean, what did she die of again?” her father asked in astonishment. It was clear he was struggling to absorb the impact of the reverend’s news too. “Are you sure it is Sally?”

  The vicar looked quite nonplussed at being questioned about his accuracy and nodded emphatically. “I am quite sure. I have just come from there now. It is Sally, I am afraid. Of course, the villagers will only just be hearing the news by now, so it is going to be the subject of a lot of discussion. She was so vibrant and full of life.”

  “She was perfectly hale and hearty.” Clementine’s voice was harsh with the ferocity of her statement.

  Sally had indeed been one of the healthiest people Clementine had ever known. Consequently, it made it considerably harder to think of her now dead and taken so unexpectedly swiftly as well.

  “It looks like some sort of seizure,” the vicar repeated.

  “But she was fine when I saw her yesterday evening. In fact, she was in fine fettle. She was looking forward to the fair. I was going to go over this morning to begin to draw up lists of last-minute things we need to do. It was all arranged.” Clementine knew that the more she spoke the shriller her voice was getting. She paused when her father placed a calming hand on her forearm, bringing her attention to the vicar who was waiting patiently for her to stop babbling.

  “Has anybody notified her sister yet?” Clementine gasped, thinking of Sally’s somewhat eccentric elder sister, Dotty, who was, quite literally a little, well, dotty.

  Maybe thinking about practical things will help. Yes, that’s what I shall try to do. Think of practical things, Clementine.

  But the practicalities all led to th
e same source of her distress: Sally Walcott was dead.

  “Not yet. I was just passing and, well, am aware you were acquainted with Sally, so I thought you should know. It is a sad loss for us all. Sally worked so diligently for the church and was such a fine, upstanding member of our community. She will be sadly missed,” the reverend continued, his tone turning increasingly melancholic.

  “I know,” Clementine finished weakly.

  “You were there yesterday evening, did you say?” Reverend Ormstone suddenly asked, piercing Clementine with a suspicious look.

  Clementine nodded. She threw a somewhat panicked glance at her father. “But she was fine when I left her. She never once mentioned me that she was feeling under the weather. In fact, I cannot remember Sally ever being ill. This is most odd. Most unusual.”

  In fact, the more Clementine thought about it the more she began to suspect that something unusual had happened. From that suspicion grew a deep-rooted gut feeling that she had to do something to find out what had really caused Sally’s death.

  I owe it to Sally, Clementine thought firmly when faint tendrils of doubt began to seep into her determination and threatened to undermine her new and wholly unexpected drive for facts.

  “Well, these things can happen to us all unexpectedly. There is nothing we can do about it,” the vicar sighed. “We are all the good Lord’s children and have to leave this earthly realm when the good Lord tells us.”

  “Good Lord,” Cameron sighed because he was about the least religious person the vicar could ever have in his reluctant congregation.

  “Indeed,” the vicar murmured having heard Cameron’s barely smothered snort. He nodded sagely and stared absently into the fire for a moment, and blessedly missed the rolling of Cameron’s eyes.

  “Thank you for calling by to tell us,” Cameron offered with an appreciative, if brief, smile when it seemed that the vicar was going to remain there for some time yet.

  “Oh, yes. Yes, well, like I said, and Mrs Saunders said this morning, Sally was meeting various people today about the fair and, well, seeing as your daughter knows her quite well I just thought I would pop by on my way back to the church, to impart the bad news. Of course, there will be the funeral arrangements to get underway now, and then I shall have to mention the sad loss of one of our own to the parishioners at church on Sunday. There is so much to do,” the reverend sighed, his shoulders now stooped with the heavy weight of his burden.

  Clementine remained silent and watched her father shepherd the still somewhat absent clergymen out of the door. She didn’t follow them but remained perfectly still and silent as she listened to her father bid the vicar goodbye. While she listened to the conversation in the hallway with only half an ear, Clementine took a few moments to herself to absorb what the vicar had just told her. Sally had been a permanent fixture in the village practically all of Clementine’s life. It was distressing to think that she wasn’t going to be around anymore.

  “I don’t believe it,” Clementine whispered. “I just don’t believe it.”

  “What, dear?” Cameron murmured when the vicar had left. He ambled back into the room and slid into a high-backed chair beside the fire to study his daughter, who looked so lost in thought he knew the instant he saw her that trouble was afoot.

  “I cannot remember Sally ever having so much as a cold,” Clementine stated.

  “Well, like the vicar has just said, death comes to us all. There is nothing to say that anybody has to have a lingering death.” Cameron sought to sooth his daughter’s disquiet, preferably before she did something rash.

  Clementine nodded but wasn’t at all sure what she should think, feel, or do now. She had planned to go to see Sally, but now she – couldn’t. At a loss, she wandered aimlessly around the sitting room before ambling over to the window seat. Perching on it, she stared thoughtfully out of the window in the direction of Sally’s house. She opened her mouth to speak to her father, who turned around in his chair so he could see her, but words failed her. There wasn’t anything she could say because she wasn’t at all sure what she should feel or do. What could one do in such circumstances? Inane platitudes had already been exchanged with the vicar and needed to be reserved for Sally’s sister, Dotty. Her father certainly didn’t need them.

  “Dotty has to informed.”

  “I am sure the funeral director, or doctor, or vicar, will see to that. It isn’t really any of our business.” Cameron sighed when Clementine glared at him. “This is a family affair. While I know Sally was an acquaintance, you weren’t the best of friends with her, were you?”

  “But she was an acquaintance. Besides, I was the last one to see her alive. I was the last one she spoke to. You saw the look on the vicar’s face just now. He thought I had something to do with her death.” Clementine fought hard to keep a hold on her panic, but it flourished anyway. The thought of anybody contemplating what that might mean, and reading all sorts of things into it, was horrifying.

  “Don’t get hysterical. I know this is distressing, but I am sure the vicar didn’t mean anything by it. You saw how upset he was when he arrived. Why, I have never seen the vicar that distracted before,” Cameron soothed.

  “Yes, which is odd, don’t you think? I mean, if he doesn’t think there is anything untoward, why would he be so anxious about telling us?” Clementine argued.

  Cameron contemplated that but couldn’t come up with an answer. “I have no idea how well he knew Sally.”

  “No better than he knows any of the other ladies who help out at the church,” Clementine argued. “There is no reason why he should be so fearful. Unless he knows something.”

  Cameron’s sharp gaze flew to Clementine. He sat up straighter and instantly became alarmed by the thoughtful tone of his daughter’s statement.

  “Now, don’t go reading too much into Sally’s death. Like we have said, unexpected deaths do occur. How do you know Sally hadn’t been feeling all that well, and the seizure is the result of something she has just ignored for a while?” Cameron argued. “If the doctor said she died from a seizure then it is a seizure that took her. He is more qualified to be able to say what took her than you or me, Clementine. Best leave him to it, eh?”

  Cameron knew his words hadn’t even registered on his daughter when Clementine didn’t even look at him. He sighed heavily and sought to find some other way of allaying Clementine’s suspicious nature. If he didn’t manage to Cameron suspected she was going to get herself into a muddle, and it would undoubtedly ruffle a lot of feathers doing so.

  “The last thing we need to do is become embroiled in the woman’s private affairs,” Cameron sighed. “You were her friend, Clementine, not a close confidant.”

  “I was the last person to see her alive,” Clementine persisted.

  “That may be so, but it doesn’t mean you have to go sticking your nose into the woman’s business. Stay out of it, before you upset someone.” Cameron glared pointedly at his daughter, who returned his look with an affronted glare.

  “I am not meddling,” she snapped pertly.

  Cameron snorted and picked up his broadsheet, flicking it crisply as if to make a point.

  “Stick to the facts, and stop looking for things that aren’t there,” he warned.

  Clementine didn’t deign to answer. She couldn’t. Her thoughts were already focused on the house further along the street, where her newly deceased friend still presumably lay on her death bed.

  Sally’s demise was a personal, family affair. Of course it was. She knew that. Clementine also knew that Sally’s sister was the one who had to see to the funeral arrangements, and she would. As eccentric as Dotty was, she was sensible enough to oversee the organisation of such a dire event. On this occasion, despite her close acquaintance with Sally, Clementine was left to do nothing but contemplate the sad loss of her friend and wonder if there was anything she could have said or done differently that would have helped in some way. It was not being able to come up with any answers that urged Clementine to find the answers, if only to settle her mind to the shocking reality that Sally Walcott was dead.

  “I don’t believe it,” she whispered when she sensed her father had moved to stand beside her. Sure enough, his hand settled on her shoulder in a comforting gesture.