Read Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1) for Free Online

him for more, so he patted her again. “There’s a
beautiful girl. What’s her name?”
    “Kali. And I’m Penny. I’ve just moved into a cottage in the
town.”
    “Hi, Penny. I’ll not shake your hand – forgive me – I’m a
bit grubby.” He showed her his dark-stained palms. His hands were wide and his
knuckles very knobbly. “I’m a blacksmith, mostly, with other stuff, you know.
Sorry, names, ahh. I’m Drew.”
    She liked his broad grin, and said, brightly, “Hi, Drew.
It’s lovely to meet you.” Lovely to meet someone who isn’t creepy or dead, in
fact. “So, tell me, where does this path lead to?”
    He turned and waved towards the trees. “Around there it
splits into two, but you wouldn’t want to take the left hand path. It leads up
to Farmer Hart’s land and he’s a … he was a stickler for the old ‘get
orf my land’ stuff. He, ahh, sadly he’s just…”
    “Yes, I know. I found the body, actually.” She heard a
strange tone in her voice. Was that pride or something? How awful. She tried to
compose her face into something serious and respectful.
    “You did? It was you? I heard talk. So you’re that woman
from London. Oh. That must have been traumatic.”
    “It was strange. I think it would have been worse if I had
known him, you know?” She had to add, after a moment’s pause, “And what do you
mean, ‘ that woman’? It sounds a little … ominous.”
    Drew simply grinned more widely. “Welcome to a small town.
We know everything about you already. You were taking a risk being on his land,
you know. Well, obviously you didn’t know.”
    “I might be a soft London type but I am pretty sure you
can’t just randomly shoot people anymore.”
    “No, but you can shoot dogs if they might worry the sheep. They
don’t even have to be attacking. The dogs, I mean. Not the sheep. Not that many
trained attack sheep around here. Anyway. David Hart got rid of his sheep a few
years back and went over to arable. Still, he’s put up electric fences
absolutely everywhere.”
    “I did wonder about that.” Penny looked over the fields.
“It’s all crops, so why does he need electric fences? How dangerous can carrots
get?”
    “That’s broccoli in there, or it was,” Drew corrected her.
“But it’s all harvested now. Heh, it can be vicious stuff … I never touch it,
myself. But you’re right. He doesn’t have … didn’t have … any livestock
at all any more. No, the electric fences were to annoy the local ramblers’
club.”
    “Really?” Penny was immediately intrigued.
    Drew nodded. “Yeah. He was really possessive about his
land. There was an ongoing thing about a footpath that the ramblers said was a
public right of way, because it had been used for a certain length of time so
it had passed into common usage or something, and was marked on an old map, and
he disagreed. Flatly refused. I don’t know what harm it would have been, but
anyway. In the ramblers’ group, there was one guy, Ed whats-his-face, who was
trying to take it to court and everything.”
    “Did he have support? The ramblers, I mean?”
    “From some people, yes. But Ed’s pretty new to the area and
some people think he’s a bit … of a hippy.”
    “How long does someone have to live here to be considered
local?” she asked. “I need to know…”
    “Oh, only two or three … generations.”
    “Great.” She rolled her eyes at him and he laughed. “I
suppose you and your family have lived here since the Norman Conquest.”
    “Are you kidding?” he said. “We’re still bitter about it.”
    A fat blob of rain fell and she shook her head, looking up.
“I guess I ought to be getting back. It was nice to meet you, Drew.” Certainly
nicer than meeting Warren, she thought. Way nicer.
    “I’m walking back to town. May I walk with you?”
    “If I say no, it’s going to be really awkward.”
    “No, it’s fine,” he said, laughing as he fell into step
alongside her. “I’ll keep a discreet