Murder on the Farm, page 1
MURDER ON THE FARM
KATE WELLS
For the Malvern Hills, my constant home wherever I find myself.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
More from Kate Wells
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Poison & Pens
About Boldwood Books
1
As Jude Gray tore down the driveway of Malvern Farm, she glanced at the clock on the dashboard.
‘Bugger it,’ she cursed.
Ben’s wedding was due to begin in twelve minutes and the church was a fifteen-minute drive away. She put her foot down a little harder on the accelerator and prayed that there would be no tractors around when she pulled out onto the country lane leading out of Malvern End. Jude hated being late for anything. She’d always taken pride in her punctuality and yet she knew that it would take a small miracle for her to arrive at the wedding on time.
It had all started so well. Noah, her shepherd, had recruited a couple of extra pairs of hands to help with the lambing whilst she was at the wedding to allow her to enjoy a proper afternoon and evening off. Frank, Noah’s dad, had arrived just as Jude was washing off her blood-stained hands in the sink at the back of the lambing shed.
‘Everything all right here?’ Frank asked Noah.
Frank was old farming stock and still not quite sure what to make of a young female farmer. He’d worked on Malvern Farm for all his adult life, introducing Noah to its ways from the day he could walk. Frank had taken over the tenancy of another local sheep farm when Noah was ready to take his place as the Grays’ chief shepherd, but he still came to help out when needed, as long as the ties of his own farm allowed.
Adam’s mother had kept to the more traditional role of farmer’s wife, making cups of tea and hearty meals whilst the men laboured on the land. Frank hadn’t quite known what to make of Jude’s more immersive, hands-on approach, so she was used to him directing his questions and thoughts to his son instead. Frank stood, stroking his bushy grey beard and peering expectantly at Noah through thick glasses.
‘Busy,’ said Jude. ‘There’s a ewe in pen eighteen who had a bit of an issue with ringwomb but, with a bit of a cervical massage, she birthed okay in the end.’
‘I’ve no doubt she did,’ said Frank. ‘Noah’s a safe pair of hands for any ewe.’
‘All Jude’s work, Dad,’ said Noah.
‘Right,’ said Frank, not bothering to hide his obvious surprise. ‘Well done, then, Jude. You’ll be wanting to go in now and get ready for this wedding, I suppose, so go on, I’ll pick it up from here and Spud will be along soon too.’
It was a little later than Jude would have liked but she still had plenty of time to scrub the smell of sheep and hay from her body, wash, dry and even style her hair before pulling on the satin slip dress she’d bought in the post-Christmas sale. When she had checked the full-length mirror, it was almost like catching sight of a previous version of herself. For once, she looked her actual age rather than the haggard old woman she’d got used to greeting in her reflection, generally wearing a uniform of checked lumberjack shirts and old jeans. Jude couldn’t help thinking about how things might have been if life had played her a different hand, been kinder and fairer. She should now be helping Adam to knot his tie and going through the best man’s speech with him one last time, perhaps with a baby chuckling happily at them from the bed. She turned away from the mirror. There was no time for melancholic thoughts. A little mascara and her favourite lipstick and she felt ready to tackle the world. Shrugging a shaggy mohair cardigan over the top of the dress to try to keep the February chill at bay, Jude was ready to go twenty minutes before her planned ETD.
Looking back, she wished she’d just jumped in the car then, given herself plenty of time to drive out to Great Malvern and arrive in a cloud of calm serenity. But she hadn’t. She’d decided to pull her wellies on and cross the yard to check in one last time with Noah and the ewes in the lambing shed.
Noah was the third generation of shepherd to have been employed by Malvern Farm and Jude was sure he knew more about sheep husbandry than most shepherds twice his age. Lambing was a tough season and this was her second one without Adam. If it hadn’t been for Noah’s easy company, vast experience and constant support, Jude knew she’d have had no chance of keeping the place afloat. She found him busy with a ewe who’d already birthed one lamb and was trying to deliver its trickier twin, so Jude left him to it. With Pip, her collie-cross, trotting at her heel, she walked along the line of lambing pens, each containing either a mother and her new baby, or a pregnant ewe about to give birth.
Jude’s heart sank when she looked into one of the pens. A new mum had clearly rolled over on top of her poor baby and, with Noah already up to his elbows, Jude knew she had no choice. Her experience told her that the lamb’s chances of survival were not good, but this one was clinging on, its eyes shut but its squashed chest rising and falling steadily. If Jude left it, waited for Frank or Spud to get back from the fields or Noah to finish with the difficult birth, the lamb would die. She looked down at her dress and flinched. Going back to change into something more appropriate would waste time that this little mite didn’t have. She took an old fleece from a hook on the wall and jammed it over her outfit to save as much of it as possible. Then she climbed into the pen to scoop up the partially flattened newborn.
Five minutes later, Jude was back in the farmhouse kitchen preparing the first colostrum feed for the lamb, who was wrapped in the old fleece and lying in a box in front of the ancient Aga.
‘Here we go,’ Jude whispered when the feed was ready. She held the lamb against her and measured the tube to make sure it would reach the stomach. Then she gently clamped the lamb between her legs and put the end of the tube in its mouth. As she pushed it down the lamb’s throat, it began to make tiny chewing movements.
‘That’s it,’ Jude said, delighted at this positive sign.
Once the tube was in place, she poured the warm first milk through a syringe and watched gravity draw it into the lamb’s stomach. The tiny mew of annoyance as Jude pulled the tube out at the end of the feed made her smile.
‘You might just be okay,’ Jude said.
She’d given the lamb a fighting chance but at the cost of her careful wedding preparations. Standing in the kitchen in her knickers and bra, Jude ironed out the crumples of her damp dress. Her tights were beyond redemption, laddered and covered in muck, so she tossed them in the kitchen bin. There was no time to try to find another pair in the tangle that was her underwear drawer, so she hoped the church would be warm.
Jude’s knackered old Land Rover County 110 pulled up outside Great Malvern Priory precisely twenty seconds after the beautiful vintage Rolls Royce that contained the bride and her father.
‘Sorry,’ Jude said as she ran past them. ‘Tilda, you look absolutely beautiful.’
The bride gave her a stiff look, the harsh features of her face pulling taut in un-camouflaged annoyance. Jude always had the feeling that Tilda had never particularly warmed to her. Still, if Tilda was about to marry Ben, one of Adam’s closest friends, then she’d just have to keep making an effort.
‘Blimey,’ Sarah said as Jude slid into the seat next to her. ‘What do you smell of?’
‘Possibly sheep placenta,’ Jude whispered back. ‘Is it really bad?’
‘Not a total disaster,’ Sarah replied, producing a bottle and spritzing Jude with a little Estée Lauder before leaning across and pulling a stray piece of hay from her hair.
Sarah flicked her phone to camera, turned the screen to selfie mode and held it up for Jude to see.
The camera flashed.
‘Hey!’ said Jude. ‘What was that for?’
Sarah looked at the screen. ‘Sorry.’ She frowned. ‘Didn’t mean to do that, I got it out for you to use as a mirror. But it is a fabulous shot!’
Jude winced at the picture on the screen. She put her hand up and tried to tame the tangle of hair that had been so elegant just a short time ago.
‘God, I look a mess,’ she said.
‘I’ve got a brush in my bag,’ Sarah said. ‘And a lippy.’
‘I don’t suppose you have any spare tights in there too, do you?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Shh,’ Sarah’s boyfriend, Nate, hissed sharply.
As the organ struck up and the congregation stood, Jud
‘She does look lovely, doesn’t she?’ Sarah sighed as Tilda glided past them, her tall, curvy frame encased perfectly in an expensive-looking ivory gown and her immaculate honey-coloured hair piled up in an elaborate do, studded with tiny flowers. Jude looked down the aisle towards Ben, who was standing at the front with Charlie, the best man and final member of their friendship group. Both tall and broad-shouldered, as Adam had been. The three amigos, with matching haircuts, Ben’s dark, Charlie’s sandy and Adam’s mousy, thanks to Bev in the village who’d seen to their hair for a fiver ever since they were boys. Jude imagined Adam standing there next to them, the ever-calming presence, and felt his absence stab her yet again.
She looked at Sarah and saw that her eyes were glued to the groom. For a long time, Jude had assumed that if Ben Wilkinson ever got married it would be to Sarah Lloyd, as did pretty much everyone else in the village. Theirs had been a complicated relationship, on again, off again but always simmering away, so it was a huge surprise when Ben announced his engagement to a girl none of them had even met before. Although Sarah had never said as much, Jude knew she’d taken the whole thing very badly. And Nate, the boyfriend who had appeared on the scene just a couple of weeks after Ben announced his engagement, was clearly a rebound. Jude’s eyes moved across to Nate. He’d been with Sarah for almost a year and yet Jude hardly knew him. He baulked from company, especially that of Sarah’s friends, it seemed. Nate glanced up and caught Jude watching him. He glowered at her before returning his attention to the service sheet.
After the service had ended, the Malvern Hills watched as the guests stood outside the old Benedictine monastery waiting for the endless photos to be over so everyone could get on with the business of making their way to the reception. Although Jude had lived her entire life in the shadow of the hills, the sheer size and magnificence of the granite peaks never failed to impress her. They rose up from the pretty Victorian town like a row of old friends and their very presence had a way of calming her and making her feel safe. Though right now she was more impatient for the warmth – and toilet facilities – of Eastnor Castle.
‘Your legs are turning blue,’ Sarah said.
‘Thanks,’ Jude replied. ‘I’m bloody freezing. Fancy picking February for a wedding.’
Jude could see that Sarah was also shivering, despite being bundled up in a fake fur coat with a ridiculously long, silky scarf wrapped several times around her neck.
A sudden angry shout caught the attention of all those gathered and Jude turned to see Charlie holding his hands up to fend off a torrent of anger from a tall brunette in a garishly bright fuchsia-pink jacket.
‘Oh dear,’ said Sarah. ‘What do you suppose he’s done now?’
Whatever it was, the brunette was clearly not happy. She slapped him hard across the face before storming off down the path that led out of the bottom of the churchyard.
‘Youch.’ Jude winced. ‘We’d better go and see if he’s all right.’
Charlie, Ben, Sarah and Adam had been a tight group ever since they’d attended Malvern End Primary School together. Meeting them much later in life, Jude might have found it difficult being a newcomer to such a close group, but she had been accepted into the fold immediately. She’d been brought up by her mother in Malvern Link, a larger and busier district of the Malverns, on the other side of the hills. It was Ben, her friend from university, who’d introduced her to the gang originally when they met up one summer when they were back home for the holidays. Jude had fallen for Adam instantly and, luckily for her, the feelings had been returned and it hadn’t been long before she was fully entwined in his life.
Sarah too had welcomed her with open arms, saying over and again how nice it was to have another girl to help disperse the testosterone. Since Adam’s death, his friends had rallied around and helped in whatever ways they could, and it was a source of lingering guilt that Jude had drifted away a little as the ties of the farm had made her permanently either busy or tired.
‘Everything all right?’ Jude said when they reached a sheepish Charlie.
‘You saw that?’ he asked.
‘Everybody here saw that,’ said Sarah.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That’s embarrassing.’
‘Whatever did you do to that poor woman?’ Sarah asked.
‘I just mentioned that she looked a lot older in real life than she did in her profile picture.’
‘Her profile?’ said Jude. ‘Oh, Charlie, please don’t tell me you brought a girl you found on the internet to your best friend’s wedding?’
‘What’s the problem?’ said Charlie. ‘Tilda told me I had to bring someone or it would mess with the table plans.’
Before Jude could comment further on Charlie’s dubious decision to bring a woman he’d never met before to a wedding where he was the best man, Ben came over to join them.
‘My favourite people,’ he said, clapping Charlie on the back and kissing Jude and Sarah on both cheeks.
‘Congratulations, mate,’ said Charlie. ‘Lovely service.’
‘Nothing to do with me.’ Ben grinned. ‘Tilda and her mother have been planning this thing for years.’
‘But you only got engaged about a year ago,’ Jude pointed out.
‘Exactly!’ said Ben. ‘I don’t think it really mattered to her who she married. Today is not about me, it’s about flowers and dresses and impressive guest lists and smoked duck sodding canapés.’
Jude had never been exactly sure what had attracted Ben to Tilda. He was one of those magnetic men, steeped in charisma and charm, who’d never been short of female attention. At uni, Jude had watched in permanent amusement as girls lined up to try to be the one to win him over. Even if things with Sarah hadn’t made it past the finishing post, he could have had his choice of partners and yet he’d chosen prickly Tilda.
‘Sorry, ladies, but I need to borrow Charlie for a moment,’ Ben said. ‘Bloody photo schedule.’
Jude squeezed Sarah’s hand as the two men walked away to be carefully positioned by the photographer in a pseudo-carefree tableau. The chilly wind chose that moment to catch Sarah’s fringe, lifting it and revealing just for a moment the clear outline of a bruise.
‘What the hell’s that?’ Jude asked, pushing Sarah’s hair aside to get a better look at the shiner that was partly hidden under her hairline. It looked old and had started to fade but no amount of carefully applied concealer could disguise how enormous it was.
‘It’s nothing,’ Sarah said, pulling her head away. ‘I slipped and caught the edge of the table the other day. Silly, really.’
‘Sarah?’ Jude didn’t believe a word. ‘Is there something going on? Are you all right?’
Sarah bit her bottom lip and tears sprang into the corners of her eyes. Jude went to put her arm around her friend but Sarah pushed her away.
‘I can’t do this now,’ she said. She glanced nervously behind her and Jude saw Nate returning from the sneaky trip he’d made to Café Nero on Church Street, noticeably with just the one takeaway cup for himself.
Jude had always found Nate Sanchez to be a selfish and difficult man but now she wondered if there was an even bigger reason why she should feel uneasy about his relationship with her friend.
