The Magic of Christmas. Trisha Ashley

Stop imagining you’re some kind of Angel of Death! What would Daddy say if he could hear you?’

      From past experience I could confidently predict that Annie’s father would go wandering off into a scholarly monologue on angels of death, the existence and symbolism of, which would be soothing, but not precisely helpful.

      Annie gave me a hug. ‘It’s not your fault that Tom was killed and you did your best to save your marriage. I know what it’s been like the last few years, and you’re a saint to have stayed with him.’

      ‘I’m not a saint. I stayed for Jasper, really, and because we both loved living here.’ A tear rolled down my cheek and landed onto the half-eaten slice of parkin I was holding, though I didn’t remember taking a piece.

      ‘I’m sure for the first few years Tom did love and need you, Lizzy. He wandered off, but he always came back again.’

      ‘Perhaps, but there were always other women. I tried to shut my eyes to it, but it hurt, Annie.’ I swallowed hard. ‘But I think I’m grieving for the Tom I married, even if the man I thought he was never existed. And I still feel guilty for being so relieved that it was Tom, rather than Jasper.’

      Annie comforted me as well as she could, and I have a vague recollection of her helping me up to bed, where I must have passed out.

      When I staggered down next morning, feeling like Lady Lazarus, everything had been cleared and tidied and washed up.

      There’s probably a Girl Guide badge for coping with a friend’s bereavement too, together with the Advanced Award for staying in control of your faculties while under the influence of damson gin.

      Chapter 7: Loose Nuts

      Candied citrus peel makes a good gift and although the traditional process is messy and time-consuming, there is a quick method, which I have used with some success. When candied, the pieces can be dipped in good dark chocolate for a tasty treat.

      The Perseverance Chronicles: A Life in Recipes

      ‘Oh, my husband was really selfish,’ I said to PC Perkins, when she came back again later that day for what she called ‘a little background detail’. This, oddly enough, seemed to consist of asking me what Tom had been like, but I expect she’d been on some kind of Dealing with the Victims of Bereavement course, or something.

      I’d finished quick-candying the orange peel left from yesterday and today’s breakfast juice, and was just writing the recipe up for the latest Perseverance Chronicle, so even the sitting room, when I led the way into it, still smelled enticingly of citrus and hot sugar.

      I seemed to be going through the motions of normal life, but most of the time my brain was entirely absent, so I must have been doing it on automatic pilot.

      Jasper, who had phoned up the dig earlier to explain his absence, followed us in and loomed about protectively. After the previous night’s hair-down, damson-gin-fuelled wake with Annie, I had given up trying to hide things from him. I don’t think it worked in the first place.

      ‘Oh, really?’ she said encouragingly, seating herself on the armchair Tom had favoured for his telly watching. I made a mental note to do something about that giant blank screen, which was like having a dead eye in the room …

      I shuddered and she eyed me speculatively.

      ‘You don’t make your husband sound terribly attractive, Mrs Pharamond!’

      ‘Actually, he could be very charming, and when I fell in love with him I thought the way he used to vanish for days without a word was endearingly absent-minded and eccentric. But really, he was just too wrapped up in himself to bother doing anything he didn’t want to, a bit like a cat.’

      ‘But you can still love a cat,’ Jasper pointed out. ‘Most cat owners seem to think their cats love them back, too.’

      ‘He did seem fond of me, in his way, until the last few years – and of you, too, Jasper, when you were small,’ I assured him, wiping a runny tear away. ‘Some men just aren’t good with children.’

      ‘I expect we’d have got on better if I’d surfed, or was interested in weird folk-rock music and stuff – fitted into his interests,’ Jasper agreed. ‘History and archaeology bored him.’

      ‘Yes, and he wasn’t even interested in food, was he, except from the eating it point of view?’

      The police officer, who’d been listening in a sort of fascinated silence, now broke in, notebook at the ready. She seemed to have an agenda of her own. ‘Just a couple of questions, Mrs Pharamond – and I’m sure you have a few you would like to ask me.’

      She gave me a reassuring smile, though it contained no warmth. Yesterday she’d seemed so kind and sympathetic, so maybe she could switch a façade on and off at will, like Tom. She also had coral-pink lipstick on her front teeth and it was so not her colour.

      ‘Perhaps your son – Jasper, isn’t it? – could make some tea,’ she suggested.

      ‘I think I’ll stay here,’ Jasper said thoughtfully, settling down on the sofa next to me.

      ‘Can you tell me what time your husband left here on the Wednesday? You said you last saw him then, didn’t you?’

      ‘I don’t know when he left, because I went for a walk in the late morning – a long walk in the woods – and when I got back my car had gone.’

      ‘Did he often borrow your car?’

      ‘No, practically never, because I usually made sure he couldn’t find the keys. His van had broken down, that’s why he took mine.’

      ‘So you were surprised to find your car gone?’

      ‘Yes, and annoyed when he didn’t come back in time for me to go and collect Jasper from the dig … or at all. I needed my car.’

      ‘He would probably have come back in good time if the accident hadn’t happened, Mum. His mobile was in the workshop and I expect he’d have taken it with him if he hadn’t just popped out for something,’ Jasper said. ‘Wonder where he was going. I checked it for messages, but he’d wiped them, so that was no help.’

      ‘I don’t know,’ I said dubiously. ‘He probably just forgot his phone.’

      ‘Where do you think he might have been going, Mrs Pharamond?’

      ‘I’ve no idea. But he told me earlier he had to finish a surfboard to deliver this weekend, so I was surprised when he didn’t come back.’

      ‘Finish a surfboard?’

      ‘He customised surfboards for a living. You know – spray-painted designs on them? He was a keen surfer, too …’ I stopped, having a sudden vision of Tom freewheeling into space off the quarry road and wondering if he found the sensation exhilarating? I wouldn’t put it past him, and of course he’d never expect anything he did, however dangerous, to actually kill him.

      ‘And you were here all evening?’

      ‘Yes. After I got back from the Mystery Play Committee meeting in the village hall I was experimenting with candyfloss, so I was pretty busy.’

      She gave me a strange look but didn’t follow that one up. Instead she turned her attention to Jasper.

      ‘And you were at this archaeological site all that day?’

      He nodded. ‘Occasionally I cycle there in the mornings, but Mum usually picks me up in the evening. The narrow roads round the site have become a bit of a rat run since everyone got satnav and she thinks I’ll get knocked off the bike,’ he said tolerantly. ‘When I got home she’d been making lemon candyfloss. Yummy.’

      ‘Right,’ she said, scribbling away. I nearly asked her if she would like me to whip her up some Cornish Mist, but I could see she had no sense of humour.

      ‘So, Mrs Pharamond,