Murder in Abbot's Folly by Amy Myers

Georgia asked, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.
    Elena looked taken aback. ‘Probably in Canterbury. I have friends there.’
    How to interpret that? Did Elena mean male friends? If so, that would lift the burden from Peter. Or would it make it worse? Georgia wondered. She had a terrible suspicion that the answer to that was yes, but she could not battle with the implications. Think of Abbot’s Retreat instead, Georgia told herself. After all, the ‘abbot’ must have gone there for its peace and quiet, to get away from his own problems.
    â€˜Of course,’ Elena was saying, ‘I’d have to have a garden.’
    A garden. Georgia remembered Elena and her garden. Remembered herself as a child, sitting on the grass playing while Elena pruned roses, weeded, tended her sweet peas – they were her favourite flower. Could one recreate that peace? Did she want to help Elena do so? Did she seek it herself?
    As they reached the gate into Abbot’s Retreat, Georgia could hear the tinkling water of the fountain, even smell the roses blooming in their peaceful home.
    â€˜Isn’t it lovely?’ Elena whispered behind her.
    â€˜Lovely,’ Georgia rejoined automatically as she drank in her first complete sight of the garden. The cloisters, the statues, the roses, the petals by the fountain – and what was that? Scattered rose petals? No, more. Someone was sprawled there, someone wearing a white dress with red spots, someone whose head was buried in the red petals that spilled out across the stone path.
    Only, now she could see that they weren’t rose petals. It was blood.

FOUR
    T his couldn’t be happening. This must surely be some costume drama into which she had been unwillingly cast. Her role? Reluctant witness. The person who found the body. Georgia shuddered. Clad as she was, it felt wrong to be sitting silently on the terrace of Stourdens at a Regency event waiting for the all too real twenty-first century police to interview her for the second time. She tried to imagine what it must be like for the police with three or four hundred possible witnesses to record and interview, but gave up the attempt. She could only think of Abbot’s Retreat, of Elena’s screams and of herself, stricken to frozen horror.
    Her automatic reaction had been to rush to the fountain to see if what she dreaded was true. It was. There had been no doubt that Laura Fettis was dead, probably shot in the head. Then the screaming had begun, as Elena had unwisely followed her. People would be gathering, and Georgia had braced herself for a supreme effort. Ensure Laura was no longer alive – no doubt there, but a ghastly task. Ring for the police. Keep everyone at bay to maintain the scene as free of contamination as possible. Fortunately, one of the early spectators to arrive had known what was needed and taken that task on. Elena had been shepherded away, and Georgia had waited for the police. The minutes had dragged by as she tried to concentrate on anything other than what she could see. Her mother – was someone looking after her? But it was hopeless, for she could not drag her thoughts away for more than a moment from Laura Fettis’s terrible end.
    Now it was gone six o’clock. Luke was with her, as were Peter and Elena. Every so often on the lawns, or passing to and fro from the house, Georgia glimpsed someone she recognized. Naturally, there was no sign of Roy Fettis or Jennifer, but every so often she saw a haggard-looking Tim trying to cope with the one PR job he could never have dreamed of being his responsibility. Dora seemed to be in perpetual motion, alternately coming to join Elena and trying to cope with Gerald, who was sitting at the former entrance table and looking as dazed as though he, not Roy, were the bereaved husband. Dora, remarkably, was far from being hysterical herself and was managing Elena’s distress much better than Georgia could. She