Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection

Suddenly she heard a sound behind her. Swinging round, she saw a young woman approaching from the bushes. ‘What are you doing hiding there?’ A kind of madness took hold of her. ‘What are you up to?’ Lilian was afraid the stranger might have heard what she’d been saying.

‘I’m not “up to” anything!’ Gloria laughed with embarrassment. ‘I was just delivering flowers,’ she said. ‘I took the wrong turn and had to cut through the bushes.’ Feeling threatened by the striking woman with her long auburn curls, she told Lilian, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt.’

Spying the pretty bouquet of flowers in her arms, Lilian asked, ‘Are they for here?’

‘Yes.’

‘But there’s no room in the vase now.’

‘Oh, it’s all right. Look!’ Shifting the flowers, she revealed how they were contained in a vase of their own. ‘The boss decided this was the best way of going on. You’re right. That vase is far too small. We’ve got a regular order, you see, and sometimes, if there’s flowers in the vase, I have to take mine back … it’s such a shame.’

Lilian wondered what was the matter with the young woman. Her voice was quaking, and she seemed in a hurry to get away. ‘You’d best do what you came for then.’ Lilian stepped aside. ‘I’m just going, anyway,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you to get on with it.’

Gloria nodded her appreciation. ‘Like I say … I’m sorry to have interrupted.’

‘It’s all right.’ Lilian glanced at the headstone. ‘She was a friend of mine. It was a terrible thing that happened.’

‘Yes, I know … Mr Arnold told us. Terrible business!’

Lilian had a question. ‘Are the flowers from him?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re lovely.’

She ran her gaze over the mix of dahlias, carnations and roses, all bright and dazzling. ‘I should think they were expensive.’

‘Yes. Very.’

‘I’d better go.’ It hurt her to realise that Tom was still sending flowers to his late wife. ‘Be careful not to hide mine.’ Another lingering glance, before she hurried away.

Behind her, Gloria shivered. ‘God. She may be a looker, but she’s a strange one!’ Setting the flowers beside the ones Lilian had brought, she tweaked them until they were to her satisfaction, then she stood up. She glanced around her nervously. Delivering flowers to the churchyard was not her favourite pastime, especially when they were meant for this particular place, and she thought she’d heard a noise.

It was probably nothing, she reasoned, turning and heading back to the car park, and her waiting van. She had another few deliveries to make in the churchyard, and then she’d be on her way.

She had finished the last of the jobs here, when she heard hurried steps behind her. ‘Oi, you!’ The old caretaker was out of breath as he waddled to catch up with her. ‘Where the devil d’you think you’re going?’

‘What do you mean?’ She recognised him straight off. He was the one who had alerted her last time, when the flowers had been destroyed.

‘What do I mean?’ Grabbing her by the arm, he urged her to get out of the van. ‘I’ll show you what I mean!’

Leading her back to the far side of the big churchyard, he pointed to where she had recently set the flowers beside Lilian’s. ‘I suppose you were going off without clearing that little lot up, were you?’

‘Oh, my God!’ She could hardly believe her eyes. The vase, the flowers she had brought, were all smashed and strewn about the churchyard. It seemed whoever did it must have been driven by a terrible hatred, for not only was every head removed from each flower, but the stems were torn to tiny pieces.

‘See what I have to put up with?’ The old caretaker was beside himself. ‘It’s bad enough clearing up the usual rubbish, without being made to clear up deliberate vandalism!’

‘They were all right when I left – what – quarter of an hour ago,’ she muttered. ‘There was this woman … she was talking to …’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Oh, my God!’

The old man’s voice pierced her thoughts. ‘You’d best clean it all up, ’cause I’m not going to!’

Before she could protest he had stomped off, and Gloria had no choice but to clear up the mess, retrieving the widely strewn pieces and carrying them to the nearest bin.

When she returned to the shop, it was to an icy reception. ‘Where on earth have you been?’ Mrs Taylor was hopping mad. ‘I’ve had to manage all on my own this past hour.’

‘I’ve been at the churchyard.’

‘What … all this time?’

‘I think I know who’s been tearing up the flowers.’

‘How?’ Now she was paying attention.

‘Well, there was this woman … about thirty-four … thirty-five. Attractive, well dressed.’

‘What are you saying … that this woman is the one who’s been vandalising the flowers?’

‘I might be wrong, but, well … you judge for yourself.’

In an excited voice, she began outlining the events at the churchyard. ‘I was coming along the main path when I saw her there. She was bent right down, staring at the headstone and talking to herself … well, either that or she were talking to somebody else, and there was nobody else that I could see.’

‘So … what did you do?’ The manageress hoped they had spotted the vandal, because Mr Arnold was coming to see them soon. It would be good if they had something positive to report.

Her colleague continued. ‘I didn’t like the look of her, so I turned off the main path and crept up round the back. I could hear her murmuring and whispering, and at one point she even wagged a finger at the headstone. I don’t mind telling you, I was scared. I tried to press back so she wouldn’t catch sight of me. Then I must have trodden on a twig or something. Anyway, she heard me, so I had to come out.’

She shivered from top to bottom. ‘She were a strange one. She had these staring eyes.’ To make her point she stared at the older woman, who promptly told her to stop being silly and ‘get on with it’.

‘Well, then she asked me what I was up to, and when I said I’d lost my way, I could see she didn’t believe me. But she wasn’t nasty or anything. Just a bit … “far-off”, if you know what I mean.’

‘No! I don’t know what you mean. So tell me.’

‘Well, when I was talking to her, she kept looking back at the headstone. She hardly ever looked at me. She just kept staring at the flowers.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She asked if they were expensive. Then she said it was a tragedy what had happened.’

‘Is that all?’

‘She asked if the flowers were from him.’

‘I see. And did you tell her?’

‘Well, o’ course I did. I couldn’t very well say I didn’t know, being as I was delivering them and all.’

‘All right. So, she asked about the flowers. There’s nothing untoward about that. She was probably just making conversation.’

The young woman shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t have said that if you’d been there!’ She told her boss about the way in which the woman in the churchyard had quizzed her, ‘About Mr Arnold, and the flowers, and when she left she told me not to hide her flowers. I got the feeling she meant to watch me.’