The Weight of a Winter Coat
The fête was winding down. Stalls that had been bright with bunting at noon now sagged in the February drizzle, their tablecloths damp at the corners, their remaining jars of chutney sweating quietly under cellophane. Agnes Peel stood at the entrance to the village hall, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the threshold, watching the last of the Thornbury residents drift out into the grey afternoon.
She had not intended to stay so long. She had come for the seed packets and a slice of Dorothy Fenn’s lemon drizzle, which was reliably worth the walk from Orchard Row. But something had kept her.
It was the coat.
A man’s overcoat, heavy wool in a dark charcoal, had been folded over the back of a chair near the tombola table since half past eleven. Agnes had noticed it when she arrived. She noticed it still, four hours later, unclaimed, its owner nowhere to be seen.
She crossed to it and pressed the lapel between her fingers. Good quality. The weave was tight and dense, and it smelled of cedar wood and tobacco, the old-fashioned pipe sort. Someone had pressed this coat recently. The fold lines were sharp.
“That’s been there all afternoon,” said a voice behind her.
Dorothy Fenn was dismantling her cake stall, stacking tins with a businesslike clatter. She was a broad woman with flour perpetually caught in her cuffs.
“Did you see who left it?” Agnes asked.
“A man. Fiftyish, perhaps. Came in with Reg Ashworth, I thought, but Reg says he didn’t.” Dorothy tucked a tin under her arm. “Bought one raffle ticket, stood by the window for a bit, then off he went. Forgot his coat, apparently.”
“Did he forget it,” Agnes said, “or did he leave it?”
Dorothy looked at her the way most people in Thornbury had learned to look at Agnes Peel. Cautious. Interested. Slightly resigned.
Agnes lifted the coat and checked the inner breast pocket. Empty. But the left exterior pocket had a stiffness to it. She reached in and drew out a slim envelope, unsealed, containing a single folded sheet of paper. She read it twice.
It was a handwritten list of figures. Property values, she thought, or something near. Five addresses in Thornbury. Numbers beside each one. And at the bottom, a name: Gerald Ashworth, with a sum that made Agnes’s breath pause for just a moment before she folded the paper and slipped it into her cardigan pocket.
Gerald Ashworth was Reg’s younger brother. He had moved back to Thornbury six months ago, after his business in Coventry failed, and he had been seen rather frequently at the offices of Calloway & Marsh, the village’s only solicitor.
Agnes put the coat over her arm and walked to where Reg Ashworth was helping stack chairs at the far end of the hall. He was a lean man with a habit of chewing the inside of his cheek.
“Reg,” she said pleasantly. “Did Gerald come today?”
Reg set a chair down with a sharp crack. “I told Dorothy. I didn’t come with anyone.”
“I didn’t ask if you came together. I asked if Gerald was here.”
A pause. Reg picked up another chair.
“He might have looked in,” he said. “He does that.”
“He left his coat.” Agnes held it out. The cedar and tobacco smell drifted between them. Reg stared at the coat for slightly too long.
“I’ll see he gets it,” he said.
“I’m sure you will.” Agnes kept hold of it. “The thing is, Reg, the coat has something in the pocket. A list of addresses. Including number fourteen Barley Close, which I believe belongs to old Mrs. Croft. She’s been unwell, hasn’t she? And her nephew has been talking to Calloway & Marsh about power of attorney.”
Reg said nothing. His jaw moved.
“I’m not a suspicious woman,” Agnes said, which was precisely untrue and they both knew it. “But a list of property values, compiled privately, for homes belonging to residents who are either elderly or financially stretched, does rather invite a question or two.”
“It’s nothing improper.” The words came out too quickly, and too flat.
“Then Gerald won’t mind if I hand this to PC Dennett and let him ask those questions instead.” Agnes smiled. It was a mild smile. A schoolmistress smile.
Reg Ashworth sat down on a folded chair. He pressed his hands to his knees and looked at the floor for a long time.
When he finally spoke, his voice had lost its shape. He told her, in fragments, about Gerald’s scheme to approach vulnerable homeowners with low-ball offers arranged through a third-party company with no visible connection to the Ashworth name. He told her Calloway & Marsh knew nothing of it. He told her he had tried to discourage it.
“And yet,” Agnes said gently, “here we are.”
She left the coat with Dorothy, who promised to see it handed to the constable along with Agnes’s note. Outside, the drizzle had softened to a mist that settled on her wool hat and the shoulders of her mackintosh.
She walked home along Barley Close. Number fourteen had its curtains drawn. A pot of winter pansies sat by the door, purple and determined, their petals beaded with moisture.
Agnes stopped for a moment, looking at them. Then she walked on.
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