No Shrinking Violet: An English small town cozy mystery (The Lillymouth Mysteries Book 2) by R. A. Hutchins

Author:R. A. Hutchins [Hutchins, R. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-19T16:00:00+00:00

Posh Sandwiches and Shortbread

Daisy was in a world of her own as she hurried down Cobble Wynd. Between random thoughts such as how is Bunch so good with flowers? And it’s best to keep calling him Bunch even to myself so I don’t slip up in public, to the only bit of the florist’s that still looks the same is ironically the display of glass vases in the main shop where I found Gran bashed over the head with one, Daisy was paying no attention to where she was going. In a moment that felt eerily like déjà-vu, the vicar felt rather than saw herself collide with someone else, though fortunately this time she didn’t end up splayed out on the cobbles.

“Watch out!” The brusque warning came from a man Daisy instantly recognised as Bea’s dad, older and greyer, but definitely him. He was older than her mum by at least a decade. The angry scowl was Daniel Harper’s go-to expression with Daisy. Even during childhood, Daisy didn’t need to crash into the man to provoke it. It had been years since they had seen each other in person – over a decade in fact – yet he obviously hadn’t got over his innate dislike of her.

“Sorry, I never seem to learn,” Daisy fumbled her way through the apology, thinking retrospectively that he would probably have no idea she was referring to her accident the previous week. As usual, the man simply glared at her and stormed off, as if Daisy wasn’t worth his attention. It had bothered her at first, during their primary school days when she would go to Bea’s house for tea and would wonder what she had done to displease the adult. The family had lived in Lillymouth then, before moving to Whitby when Harper got his promotion in the police force. Given that Lillymouth was too small a town to have its own high school, Daisy and Bea had still ended up together in the next stage of their education, and had remained fast friends despite the man’s dislike of his daughter’s choice. Morag had always been kind and motherly, and when Daisy reached her teens she had wondered whether some of that wasn’t simply to compensate for her husband’s unfounded rudeness.

Pushing the unfortunate collision out of her mind, where she simply didn’t have the space for one more dissatisfied person, Daisy resumed her own inner monologue. Could she trust a man like Bunch who could lie to everyone for over fifteen years and who is obsessive about personal gain? Is it the wealth or just the thrill of the discovery he craves? Or the fame it would garner him in treasure seeking circles? Wasn’t she herself just as bad obsessing over Gran’s murder… and on and on.

It was nearly four o’clock when Daisy realised her stomach was rumbling from the lack of any food over the course of the day. She had visited old Mrs. Harrington in her townhouse on The Parade, where every Monday Daisy was offered a biscuit from the same 1970s tin that was never emptied nor refilled.

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