Page 132 of Corrupt
After a minute or two Julia was close enough to call out to Oscar. She put her cupped hand to her mouth, but stopped when she saw him enter Blooming Marvels, the local florist. Julia slowed her pace as she neared the pots that were artfully arranged along the pavement, and the baskets hanging from hooks on the front wall. They were a glorious sight, whatever the season, bursting with a profusion of colourful flowers and trailing plants. She was hesitant to follow Oscar into the shop. She dithered outside, admiring the pansies with their cheerful little faces. They had not a care in the world, she mused.
The decision of whether or not to speak to him was taken out of her hands by Oscar, who emerged from the shop.
‘Julia!’ he said. ‘What a coincidence. Are you buying flowers?’
‘Oh no. Not buying flowers. Just passing by. A coincidence, yes. And you? Buying flowers?’
She noticed that his hands were empty.
‘Yes,’ he said, offering no further information, just a shy grin.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Better, I think. My talk to Dr O’Connor helped.’
‘Good, Oscar, I’m glad. I hope you feel better.’
‘It’s all been a terrible shock, that’s all. But in the end, it will all be for the best,’ said Oscar, somewhat cryptically. Before Julia could ask him what he meant, he gave a little wave. ‘Goodbye, then, Julia. Thanks for all your help.’ Oscar turned back the way they’d come, back to the village, and his house. Julia looked at her watch. She’d been gone from Second Chances for fifteen minutes. Wilma would be wondering what on earth she was up to. She should really get back. But first…
Angela was behind the long wooden trestle table that ran almost the width of the little shop and served as desk and workbench. She was dressed, as usual, in a stylishly distressed pale denim work apron, her blonde hair in a low ponytail, tied with a piece of straw twine. She greeted Julia without ceasing her work, picking up a lily from a selection in a bucket on the table next to her and pushing it into the arrangement she was making. Next, she picked up a sprig of russet leaves. Her method seemed entirely random; in fact she hardly seemed to be looking when she reached for the next flower, or decided where to put it.
‘There you go, I reckon that’s about right,’ she said. Her arrangement looked perfect, fresh and loose and wild, a chaotic mix of foliage, grass and flowers. ‘All ready to be delivered straightto the lucky recipient.’
‘Someone’s going to be very happy with that,’ said Julia. ‘It’s marvellous.’
‘Pretty, isn’t it? What do you think of those huge pale hydrangeas? They’re a new strain, just came in a few weeks ago. I was just saying to the previous customer that I’ve been using them in everything, I can’t get enough of them. So he’s getting one in the delivery he ordered, too.’
‘Oscar?’
‘Yes, Oscar. Sweet chap, and a good customer.’
‘I’lljust pop the card on the bunch, and then I’ll help you,’ said Angela, patting the workbench, looking for something. ‘Now, where’s the card? He put it down here not a minute ago.’
A corner of paper sticking out from under a basket of grasses caught Julia’s eye. ‘Is this it?’ she said, pushing the basket off what turned out to be a small rectangle of cardboard with a few words in a small, angular hand. She made out a capital J at the top and his name, Oscar, at the bottom, with an X below it, before Angela scooped it up.
‘There we have it,’ she said, pushing the card into a little envelope with the Blooming Marvels daisy logo on it, and a couple of lines of writing which Julia assumed must be an address.
‘Now, what can I do for you?’ asked Angela. ‘Special occasion? Gift?’
‘Um…’ said Julia. ‘No occasion. Just something cheerful for the house. Something like what you did for Oscar would be perfect.’
16
‘I treated myself,’ Julia told Jake, who was sitting at her feet, watching her arrange her flowers in a large glass vase. ‘Arranging’ was a bit of an overstatement, because they fell naturally into a lovely loose design. Nothing much further was required, and the fiddling and fluffing up was more out of habit and for her own pleasure, than for necessity. Julia knew that she sounded a little defensive. She lived comfortably but fairly frugally, and didn’t often buy extravagant non-necessities. And Blooming Marvels priced its wares for London solicitors with weekend places in the Cotswolds, not retired social workers.
Jake gazed at her in adoration, as usual. He thought she’d made a great decision. In fact, he thought she deservedmoretreats. Preferably edible ones. Sausages would be nice.
She wondered where the other, almost identical, bunch of flowers had ended up. The one Oscar had bought to send to someone. Who was the J to whom the note had been addressed? Was it Jane? Or were they for some other woman? A girlfriend, perhaps? Or just a friend, someone who had done him a kindness in this time of trouble? A Jackie or a Jennifer or a Joanne.
Julia thought back to the sighting of Jane and Oscar, theway they had leaned into each other, speaking softly. Julia thought of Jane’s hand on Oscar’s arm. It had seemed comfortable, a familiar gesture.
And then there was the kiss.
Julia tried to recreate the scene in her mind, to remember exactly what she had seen in that moment that Jane had turned towards Oscar and kissed him. Had it been on the cheek? Julia thought so. If Jane’s lips had touched Oscar’s, it would have been just a glancing touch. It hadn’t been a smooch, that was for sure. But there had been something intimate about the whole scene – her hand on his arm, the kiss goodbye. Was it the intimacy of old friends? Or something more? Were Oscar and Jane involved, as they had been in the past? Was that why Graham had died? It didn’t bear thinking about.
The question was whether this was something Julia needed to talk to Hayley about. Hayley might well know about the history between Jane and Oscar, but she wouldn’t know how close they were now. The way the two of them had walked, and that kiss – it was two people who were very familiar with each other. And the flowers that Oscar was sending to ‘J’. It could only be Jane. Then there was Oscar’s strange, cryptic statement about it all being for the best. Plus, Angela had said that Oscar was a good customer, so perhaps this had been going on for some time. While Hayley might not welcome Julia’s opinions on this, she had to know or she might miss something important about this case. Julia had no choice, she realised. This was more than gossip; this could be a clue. A clue that could lead to a killer, and get Julia and Tabitha cleared of any suspicion at all.
Hayley Gibson answered the call on the second ring with a rather gruff ‘Julia’. Julia, who had been expecting a bit of a longer ring, and then the usual niceties – a ‘hello’ at least – was flustered.
