True Love Ways by Sally Quilford Read Free Book Online Page A

together. This wasn't about
her feelings. It was about Jimmy and the predicament he was in. “Yes, I
understand,” she said. “But tell Jimmy I'll do my best to find out who the real
attacker is.” Betty need not know that a few minutes before, Meredith had been
convinced it was Jimmy.
     
    “What I'd like to know,” said Peg over a cup of hot
cocoa, “is how Bert knew it was Edith talking to Turner. I can't imagine he
knows her. The youngsters who come up for the strawberry picking aren’t exactly
churchgoers.” The drawing room was dim, illuminated only by the lamplight on
the table next to Peg's chair.
     
    “She denies it anyway,” said Meredith.
     
    “That's not my point, dear. Boys like Bert can be
suggestible. I'd like to know exactly what your Reverend Drew asked him, and
what he replied.”
     
    “You needn't worry, Aunty Peg. Drew is an expert
detective.”
     
    Peg smiled benignly. “He's also a man with a lot of
power over young minds. He's probably too nice a person to realise it.”
     
    Meredith sank down into the armchair. “It's true
they all love him. I'm not doing very well, Aunty Peg. No one likes me or
trusts me enough to tell me their secrets. Edith disapproves of me because she
knows I’m illegitimate and the youngsters just don’t trust me in the way they
trust Drew.”
     
    “You're just a bit too enthusiastic, dear. I was the
same in the beginning. We learn from our mistakes. All you need to learn is how
to listen more to what people are saying. Really listen. Not just to what they
do say, but what they don't say.”
     
    “Yes, but if they clam up on me, what am I supposed
to listen to? Drew is so approachable. Everyone talks to him, even Edith, and
she doesn't approve of him either.” Meredith sipped her cocoa. “I thought I was
a nice person that other people liked until this week. Oh listen to me.” She
put her cup down on the coffee table. “A man has been murdered, and here I am
feeling sorry for myself.” She couldn't explain how low she felt, and she was
not sure all of it was to do with Turner's murder. She wanted Drew to be
impressed with her, but she was also afraid of where that might lead. Common
sense told her that she should be safe with a vicar. Then she remembered how it
had felt being close to him, and his reminder that he was a man like any other
men.
     
     
    “The Mortimer's seem to like you,” said Peg in a
soothing voice. “Clarice phoned to invite us to dinner on Saturday night, and
was most insistent you go. I shan't be able to attend, but you can. They only
feel bad about me because it was at the vicarage that I broke my ankle. So silly
of me not to watch where I was going on the stairs.”
     
    “Now that's where I do feel guilty. Reverend
Mortimer is such a nice man, and she's absolutely lovely and charming. It seems
wrong to be suspecting them of anything. I know, I know. I shouldn't discount
people just because I like them.”
     
    “Sadly no one is too nice to commit a crime. Anyone
can be pushed over the edge. Assuming they're not over it already.”
     
    “Now then,” said Chalmers, coming into the room and
clapping her hands together. “Are we ready for our bed?”
     
    “Well, you might be,” said Peg. “But I think I'm
going to have a tot of whisky first.”
     
    Chapter Five
     
    If the next few days proved anything to Meredith, it
was that detecting was very much a waiting game.  She had expected to be rushing
around, picking up clues, talking to people, but in reality, it was a matter of
awaiting the chance to do all those things. She ambled around Midchester,
picked more strawberries, made jam for the first time in her life, and
generally got to know the area again.
    She saw Drew a couple of times in the distance, but
he didn't approach her, and she didn't go to him, even though she was desperate
to know what Jimmy had said. She realised she was cutting off her nose to spite
her face by not asking, but if she was honest, she