Hemlock Row (The Lancefield Murders Book 3) by Mariah Kingdom

Author:Mariah Kingdom [Kingdom, Mariah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Marcus watched in silence as Nancy cleared the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher.

She had a quiet, calm efficiency that never baulked at any kind of service demanded of her. As Richard’s secretary and personal assistant, she might be forgiven for expecting to spend her time making appointments, dealing with correspondence and helping the old man to manage the affairs of his estates.

But there was so much more to Nancy Woodlands than her secretarial role might suggest. Ask her to prepare a meal, and she would tell you that she had a new recipe she was itching to try. Ask her to walk the dog, and she would tell you that she loved Samson, it was a pleasure to be out in the fresh air with him. Order flowers for Lucy’s grave? She missed Lucy almost as much as the family did and would take the opportunity to order a floral tribute of her own while she was about it.

She didn’t deal directly with the housework or laundry, of course. Since Becca’s untimely departure from the hall, those pleasures had been delegated under Nancy’s watchful eye to a carefully chosen and discreet local cleaning firm. The upkeep of the garden had been entrusted to a friend of a friend of Richard’s, a man of advancing years who ran a small and specialist landscaping firm. And the redoubtable Mrs Peel, that willing and useful pair of hands in the village, was always on standby for anything that remotely resembled a domestic emergency. No, there was nothing much that fazed Nancy by the asking of it.

Except, perhaps, the need to provide an alibi for Marcus.

It occurred to Marcus now, as he watched her, that Nancy, as well as Richard, was in a position to provide him with an alibi for the night of Geraldine Morton’s death. Just as she had provided him with an alibi for the time of Lucy’s and Philip’s murders all those months ago. The alibi then had been false, of course, and Nancy within her rights to confess to the sin and rescind it. Which was nothing more than Marcus would expect.

But it had never been lost on him that her confession came ahead of his own; that she alerted both the family and DCI Price to the fact before Marcus stepped up to confess.

And it had never been mentioned again. There had been no conversation between the two of them to clear the air, no attempt at an explanation by Nancy, no attempt by Marcus to reassure her that her decision to confess had been understood. He had arrived back at Salvation Hall on Wednesday of that week to be greeted by Nancy like an old, old friend who had never been away. But as each day passed, that rescinded alibi hung in the air between them, a reminder that Nancy’s alibis were not to be relied upon without question.

A reminder that trust had been broken.

He felt a laugh begin to rise in the pit of his stomach, and he pinched his lips inwards too late to stifle it.

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