A Bitter Feast(85)

“We are talking,” she said, perplexed.

But Joe gave an anxious glance round, as if someone might be lurking in the shrubbery. “No, I mean—” He gestured toward the glasshouse. “Can we talk in there? It’s sort of personal. There’s something I need to tell you.”

In her experience, those words never presaged good news. With a little cold lump of dread in her stomach, Melody followed him into the glasshouse. What, she wondered, could be more personal than apologizing for drunken shagging?

For once, the warm, earthy atmosphere in the glasshouse did not feel comforting. In its close confines, she could smell the wood smoke on Joe’s clothes, and the scent of his soap.

Turning away from her, Joe gazed down at the neat rows of vegetables in the kitchen garden. “I’m not sure where to start.”

Melody began making a mental list of dread diseases. “Look, Joe, if this is about—you know—what we did last night, you’d better tell me and get it ov—”

He swung round to face her again, looking shocked. “No, it’s not about that at all. It’s about that chef. The one who died in the car crash with Nell Greene.”

“What?” Melody was completely blindsided. “You mean Fergus O’Reilly? What does he have to do with—”

“He was here. In the house.”

It was a moment before Melody could do anything but stare. “You mean in my house?”

“Well, yeah, your parents’ house, anyway.”

“But surely not,” Melody protested, frowning. “My parents didn’t even know him. You must be mistaken.”

Joe gave her a half smile. “Not likely. His wasn’t a face you’d forget. Not that his face was the first part of him I saw.”

Taking a step back, Melody connected with a pile of bagged mulch and inadvertently sat. “You’d better explain.”

“It was maybe three weeks ago—”

“Then my parents wouldn’t have been here. They only came down the beginning of last week.”

“No, they weren’t here,” Joe agreed. “Roz was.”

“Roz Dunning?” Now Melody was really baffled. “But she never said she knew O’Reilly.”

“Well, I can tell you that she did know him—at least in the biblical sense.” Joe sounded surprisingly snappish. “I came up to do my washing. I didn’t know Roz was here that day. So when I walked into the house and heard thumping noises coming from upstairs, I thought the house was being burgled. I grabbed the emergency torch and crept upstairs as quietly as I could. By the time I’d reached the top I was pretty certain it wasn’t burglars, but I kept going to your parents’ bedroom.” Joe winced. “That was a sight I wish I could un-see. But, then, they weren’t best pleased to see me, either.”

“Roz was with Fergus O’Reilly? They were . . . having sex? In my parents’ room?”

“They certainly weren’t playing charades.”

“But—” Melody tried to wrap her mind round this. She wished her head would stop pounding. “This was three weeks ago?”

“Yeah. I usually do my washing on a Monday, so it was three weeks today.”

According to what Melody had heard from the others, Fergus O’Reilly had checked into the manor house in Lower Slaughter three weeks ago, but hadn’t spent the night in his hotel room. Had he been with Roz Dunning? “But if she knew Fergus, why see him here? She lives alone, right?”

“Roz says she didn’t know him. He came to see your mother. He was hoping for an in with Viv, and a ticket to the luncheon. But of course your mother wasn’t here, and Roz just—fancied him, I take it. I gather he was willing.”

“But she—but he was a complete stranger? How could she—” Melody was appalled. But she couldn’t pass judgment.

“Okay,” she said. “So Roz was shagging Fergus O’Reilly, at least once that we know of. But after Fergus died, why on earth didn’t she say she knew him? She was here when the police came to notify Viv.”

“Maybe she didn’t want your mum to think badly of her. Then, when there were rumors about his death, she didn’t want to admit she hadn’t been honest in the first place.”

Melody frowned, thinking things through. Something didn’t add up. “Joe, what I don’t understand is why you didn’t say anything before now.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and prodded a bag of mulch with the toe of his boot. “Because I’ve been an idiot. At first, I thought that Roz lying didn’t matter, that the car crash was just an unfortunate accident. But then yesterday, when I heard Jack Doyle had been killed, I started to wonder. And I couldn’t figure out why Roz was so determined no one find out about her and O’Reilly.”

Melody remembered how hostile Roz had been yesterday when she’d happened on her washing her car. Washing her car. Christ. “Oh, God, Joe. You don’t think Roz could have run down Jack Doyle? But—”

“Melody. Listen. There’s more.” He took a deep breath and she saw that he’d clenched his hands into fists. “I didn’t say anything because Roz was blackmailing me,” Joe blurted out. “You know she trained as an accountant, right? And that she keeps the business books as well as your mum’s personal accounts?” He looked away. “Well, she found . . . discrepancies . . . in the business account. She threatened to tell your mother if I said anything about her and O’Reilly.”