‘I will do anything to help that I can. And I am truly sorry.’ Rosa tutted sympathetically, then pulled the blue folder from her bag. ‘Right, now let’s see if we can get this Christmas show on the road.’
‘Ah, there it is,’ Jamie said. ‘Her Nativity Bible, she used to call it.’
‘So why is your name in the folder?’
Jamie took it from Rosa. ‘Let me see. She took down my email address the other day, telling me she wanted to send me something – a surprise. Her handwriting always was appalling …here it is, see. That says Jamie, not Janie. She’d just scribbled down Contact Jamie to remind herself to email me, probably. She was so sporadic and disorganised; never had a notebook handy. When you contacted me, I played along with it as I was so happy to get the folder back. The Christmas concert was very important to her.’ Jamie rubbed a hand over his face before confiding, ‘I don’t trust her family, Rosa. I didn’t think for one moment that they would do the decent thing and hand the running of it over to someone like you. It makes me feel all the more guilty, in fact.’
‘Guilty, why? Because you were sleeping with Celia?’
‘No.’ Jamie gulped. ‘Because the surprise she was emailing me about was that she’s left me everything in her bloody will.’
Rosa tried not to laugh but couldn’t help herself.
‘I wasn’t after a single penny of hers, I swear,’ the gardener managed, but began to laugh, seeing the funny side of it too.
‘You can’t kid a kidder,’ Rosa managed to blurt out.
‘You are so right. And then when what happened, happened – well, I thought I’d be arrested for bloody manslaughter. Miss Marple and Murder at the Vicarage kind of thing.’
Rosa had to apologise. ‘Sorry for saying that – the kidder bit, I mean. It’s just, well, you read about these things happening and here you are, living proof that they really do. Do you think she knew she was going to die then?’
‘God no! She was nearly killing me in that bedroom before she had the sudden heart attack. I think it was just a glorious coincidence for me, that she got it all tied up when she did.’
‘Too much information.’ Rosa shook her head.
‘She hated her family,’ Jamie said grimly. ‘Felix only ever showed his face and came to see her when he wanted something.’
‘He seemed distraught when I saw him.’
‘Probably because he had to put his hand in his pocket to bury her.’
‘So, do the family know yet about you getting the money?’
‘God no! I spoke with the solicitor, pleaded for him to arrange the official reading to take place on the day after the funeral. The same day I fly out to Ibiza.’
‘Ooh nice, how long for?’ Rosa piped up.
‘Forever,’ Jamie Ward replied confidently.
Rosa was just making her way to the bus stop when she noticed a familiar-looking figure walking towards her accompanied by a Great Dane on a lead. Attractive in a geeky sort of way, the man had short fair hair and was still wearing the same horn-rimmed glasses that he had when she first set eyes on him in the Lobster Pot. Their affair, pre-Josh, had been full-blown but one-sided, because unbeknown to her, he had three kids and his wife was expecting another one.
‘If it isn’t Joe Fox,’ Rosa said curtly. The sneaky one had a beard or was trying to grow one, at least. It didn’t suit him. ‘I heard you were back.’
‘Of course you did,’ Joe said nonchalantly. ‘You only have to take a shit down here and a klaxon goes off.’ His Mancunian accent seemed stronger somehow.
Yuk. Then she noticed a bandage on the dog’s foot. ‘Poor Suggs.’
‘Yeah, he’s OK, had to have a lump removed from his paw. Note to self: get insurance in future.’
‘Ah, here’s my bus now.’ Rosa reached for her purse. ‘Well, I hope he gets better soon.’
‘Marriage suits you. You’re looking good, Rosa,’ he shouted after her as the doors were about to close.
‘And you’re still a cock,’ Rosa said under her breath.
CHAPTER 27
Christopher wasn’t home when Rosa arrived back in the Bay, so she put the sprig of jasmine under the wheel arch of the hearse that was parked outside the back entrance to his office and then messaged him to explain what she had done. Checking her watch to see how much time was left before she had to collect Little Ned, she walked down the hill and stopped at the Co-op to see if Mary was working. On seeing that she wasn’t, she knocked on the door of Seaspray Cottage. No answer – that was strange too. Her mum rarely left the Bay.
Needing the loo, Rosa let herself in. Fires were burning, she saw, in both the lounge and kitchen grates. There was a half-finished bottle of Zero-alcohol champagne on the kitchen table and a Meerschaum pipe lying right next to it. And then, oh man alive, right there, coming from upstairs in her mother’s bedroom, were the sounds of joyful and rampant lovemaking. Even Merlin was just sat mute in his basket, his yellow fog-lamp eyes staring, big pointy ears up.
Reversing on tiptoe as if she was in some crazy sitcom, Rosa silently shut the front door behind her and, in total shock at what she had stumbled upon, headed straight to the Corner Shop.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ Titch remarked, rubbing her aching back.
‘It would have caused less anguish if I had, to be honest.’
‘Oh no, what’s happened?’
‘It’s Mary.’
Titch ran round the counter to her friend’s side. ‘Oh no! Dearest mother-in-law said she saw her coming out of the doctor’s earlier. What’s going on?’
‘Doctors?’ Rosa queried. ‘That’s odd; she sounded fine to me. In fact, she appeared to be having a rather large injection of the sausage kind.’
‘What? Do you mean… Oh my God!’ Titch burst into laughter.
‘I popped in to say hi on my way back from Polhampton and they were at it upstairs.’
‘Do you think it was Christopher?’
At this, Rosa laughed until she nearly wet herself. ‘Mate, my mum hasn’t had sex since the Boer War – of course it was Christopher. I need the loo!’ Racing off into the back kitchen to the toilet, she called out, ‘Now I know what people mean about not wanting to think of their parents doing it. Put the kettle on, Titch.’
The girls sat next to each other at the shop counter as they had done many times before. The biscuit tin nearly empty, the conversation was flowing. ‘So, about Edie’s sighting of Mary at the doctor’s, tell me about that,’ Rosa asked. Then light dawned. ‘Shit, her memory stuff. What am I like? I forgot about that.’
They both laughed again.
‘Yes, well, Edie saw both your mum and Christopher leaving the surgery together. Her diagnosis: they both have gonorrhoea.’
Rosa was set off again, crying with laughter. But underneath she was cross. ‘That spiteful woman! I mean, how can someone even get to that conclusion? She really is something else.’
‘I just ignore her now and keep thankful that Ritchie is more like his dad.’
‘Well, from what I heard just now at Seaspray Cottage, there’s not much wrong with my mum,’ Rosa said brightly. ‘Unless they were doing the “life’s too short bit”.’