Elizabeth George - This Body of Death

She needs a guardian, he told himself in answer to the voices. She needed to be on her guard.

Since she was not, he would be on guard for her. That and no other would be the duty which he would embrace.

HER NAME WAS GINA DICKENS, MEREDITH LEARNED, AND it seemed that she was Gordon Jossie’s new partner, although she didn’t actually refer to herself as that. She didn’t use new because, as things turned out, she had no idea there was an old partner or a former partner or whatever one wanted to call Jemima Hastings. She also didn’t use partner as such, as she didn’t quite live there in the cottage although she “had hopes,” she said with a smile. She was there on the holding more than she was at her own place, she confided, which was a tiny bed-sit above the Mad Hatter Tea Rooms. They were in Lyndhurst High Street, she said, where, frankly, the noise from dawn to dusk was appalling. And, come to think of it, the noise went on far beyond dusk because it was summer and there were several hotels, a pub, restaurants…and with all the tourists at this time of year…she was lucky to average four hours of sleep a night when she was there. Which, to be honest, she tried not to be.

They’d gone inside the cottage. It had, Meredith quickly saw, been stripped of all things Jemima, at least as far as the kitchen went, which was as far as Meredith herself went and was also as far as she wanted to go. Alarm bells were ringing in her head, her palms were wet, and her underarms were dripping straight down her sides. Part of this was due to the day’s ever-increasing heat, but the rest was due to everything being absolutely wrong.

Outside the cottage, Meredith’s throat had instantly dried to a desert. As if knowing this, Gina Dickens had ushered her within, sat her down at the old oak table, and brought from the fridge designer water in a frosty bottle, just the sort of thing Jemima would have scoffed at. She poured them both a glass and said, “You look as if you’ve…I don’t know what to call it.”

Meredith said stupidly, “It’s our birthday.”

“Yours and Jemima’s? Who is she?”

Meredith couldn’t believe at first that Gina Dickens didn’t know a thing about Jemima. How could one live with a woman for as long as Gordon had lived with Jemima and somehow manage to keep the knowledge of her existence from his…Was Gina his next lover? Or was she one in a line of his lovers? And where were the rest of them? Where was Jemima? Oh, Meredith had known from the first that Gordon Jossie was bad news on legs.

“…at Boldre Gardens,” Gina was saying. “Near Minstead? D’you know it? He was thatching a building there and I’d got myself lost. I had a map, but I’m completely useless even with a map. Spacially hopeless. North, west, whatever. None of them mean a thing to me.”

Meredith roused herself. Gina was telling her how she and Gordon Jossie had met, but she didn’t care about that. She cared about Jemima Hastings. She said, “He never mentioned Jemima? Or the Cupcake Queen? The shop she opened in Ringwood?”

“Cupcakes?”

“It’s what she does. She had a business she ran from this cottage and it’d grown so much and…bakeries and hotels and catering for parties like children’s birthdays and…he never mentioned…?”

“I’m afraid he didn’t. He hasn’t.”

“What about her brother? Robbie Hastings? He’s an agister. This-” She waved her arm to indicate the entire holding. “This is part of his area. It was part of his father’s area as well. And his grandfather’s. And his great-grandfather’s. There’ve been agisters in their family so long that all this part of the New Forest is actually called the Hastings. You didn’t know that?”

Gina shook her head. She looked mystified and, now, a little bit frightened. She moved her chair a few inches away from the table and she glanced from Meredith to the cake she’d brought, which, ridiculously, she’d carried into the cottage. Seeing this, it came to Meredith that Gina wasn’t afraid of Gordon Jossie-as she damn well should have been-but of Meredith herself who was talking rather like a madwoman.

“You must think I’m barking,” Meredith said.

“No, no. I don’t. It’s just…” Gina’s words were quick, marginally breathless, and she seemed to stop herself from going on.

They were silent together. A whinnying came from outside. “The ponies!” Meredith said. “If you’ve got ponies here, Robbie Hastings would likely have brought them in off the Forest. Or he would have arranged with Gordon to fetch them. But in either case, he would have come by at some point to check on them. Why d’you have ponies here anyway?”

If anything, Gina looked more concerned than before at this ping-ponging of Meredith’s conversation. She clasped both hands round her water glass and said to it rather than to Meredith, “Something about…I don’t exactly know.”

“Are they hurt? Lame? Off their feed?”

“Yes. That’s it, isn’t it. Gordon said they were lame. He brought them in off the Forest…three weeks ago? Something like that. I’m not sure, actually. I don’t care for horses.”

“Ponies,” Meredith corrected her. “They’re ponies.”

“Oh, yes. I suppose. I’ve never quite seen the difference.” She hesitated, as if considering something. “He did say…” She took a sip of the water, lifting the glass with both hands as if she’d not have been able to get it to her mouth otherwise.

“What? What did he say? Did he tell you-”

“Of course one asks eventually, doesn’t one?” Gina said. “I mean, here’s a lovely man living on his own, good-hearted, gentle, passionate when passion’s called for if you know what I mean.”

Meredith blinked. She didn’t want to know.

“So I did ask how he happened to be alone, no girlfriend, no partner, no wife. No one’s snapped you up? That sort of thing. Over dinner.”

Yes, Meredith thought. Outside in the garden, sitting at the wrought-iron table with the candles lit and the torchères blazing. She said stiffly, “And what did he say?”

“That he’d been involved once and he’d been quite badly hurt and he didn’t like to talk about it. So I didn’t want to intrude. I assumed he’d tell me when he was ready.”

“That’s Jemima,” Meredith said. “Jemima Hastings. And she’s…” She didn’t want to put it into words. Putting it into words might make it true and for all she knew it wasn’t true at all. She assessed her facts, for they were few enough. The Cupcake Queen was closed up. Lexie Streener had made phone calls that had gone unreturned. This cottage was semioccupied by another woman. She said, “How long have you and Gordon known each other? Been involved? Whatever?”

“We met early last month. At Boldre-”

“Yes. At Boldre Gardens. What were you doing there?”

Gina looked startled. Clearly, she hadn’t expected the question and even more clearly, she didn’t much like it. She said, “I was having a walk, actually. I’ve not lived in the New Forest long and I like to explore.” She offered a smile as if to take the sting out of what she said next. “You know, I’m not sure why you’re asking me this. D’you think something’s happened to Jemima Hastings? That Gordon did something to her? Or that I did something? Or that Gordon and I together did something? Because I do want you to know that when I got here, to this cottage, there wasn’t a sign that anyone-”

She’d stopped abruptly. Meredith saw that Gina’s eyes were still fixed on hers, but they’d lost their focus, as if she was seeing something else entirely. Meredith said, “What? What is it?”

Gina dropped her gaze. A moment passed. The ponies whinnied outside once again and the excited warbling of pied wagtails broke into the air, as if warning one another that a predator was approaching. “Perhaps,” Gina finally said, “you ought to come with me.”