CHAPTER ONE
Once a year, Mrs. Judith Potts liked to "beat the bounds" of her property. It was something her village had done when she'd been growing up on the Isle of Wight, and she'd been delighted when she'd arrived at Oxford University to discover that her college, Somerville, conducted the same ceremony. It involved finding a large stick and then using it to beat the ground that marked the perimeter of the land that was owned. It was carried out, of course, to check that no neighbors had encroached during the previous year, but for Judith, it was also an exercise in psychological geography. It was her saying, "This is my world. Within this area I feel safe."
She always chose the day of the autumn equinox for the ritual. It was, she felt, the perfect time to check that everything in her life was in order before she hunkered down for the long months of winter.
As she hunted for a branch in the little copse of trees to the side of her house, she marveled at how very unremarkable the weather was. It wasn't warm, it wasn't cold, there was only the gentlest of breezes tugging at the leaves on the trees, and the sky was a uniform gray. It was mild— that was the word, Judith realized. She hated the word "mild." It hadn't even been cold enough for her to put on her woolen cloak.
She loved wearing her cloak, especially on the day she beat the bounds. Wearing it while swishing her stick about the place— ideally in a storm-tossed wind— made her feel like D'Artagnan or Edmond Dantès. The fact that she was a pleasingly plump seventy -nine -year- old woman didn't get in the way of her self-image as a swashbuckling hero.
Some years, Judith looked for something nice and whippy to attack the various weeds and nettle-beds she let grow around her garden, but this year she was delighted to find a thicker branch on the ground. It had a real heft to it, and as she picked it up, she noted how very gnarled and knotty it was. Yes, she thought, it would do very well indeed. She could do some damage with this.
She took the stick up her little driveway, pausing only briefly to retrieve the cut glass tumbler of whisky she'd earlier placed on the wonky bird table. Then, with her stick in one hand and a full glass of whisky in the other, she started to tap on the ground around the edge of her land— or as much of it as she could reach. The laurel hedge along the side of her house was now well over three times her height and joyously out of control, she noted with satisfaction. Next, she picked her way over a pile of wrecked pallets that she only remembered existed once a year— on this very day— and, as she did every year, she vowed that she'd get someone around to remove them while also knowing that she wouldn't ever get around to it.
Then, Judith stepped onto the thick grass of her lawn and smiled in satisfaction. It had been over a year since she'd lit a colossal bonfire in her garden, and it was still possible to see evidence of its existence. A large circle of grass in the middle of the lawn was far more lush than the surrounding area. She took a ruminative slug of her whisky and let the stick drag behind her as she made her way toward the river at the bottom of her garden. She considered how things had changed since she'd let Becks and Suzie into her life and they'd started catching killers together. While she knew she was far happier now than she'd been before, there was still the smallest part of her— barely the size of an aniseed pip— that felt uncomfortable letting them get so close. Showing people her true self made her feel itchy, and she didn't quite know what to do with this feeling of discomfort. The truth was, she enjoyed solving crimes with her friends just as much as she enjoyed closing the door on the world and sitting in bed with rounds of buttered toast and a good crossword.
Judith held her left hand up so she could look at her wedding ring. It was all very well larking about the place catching killers, but only she understood the true meaning of the gold- colored band. It represented who she really was.
Judith downed a good slurp of whisky, letting the warm glow spread through her and chase away the chill that had crept in. The answer, she told herself, was not to think about the past. Instead, she took her big stick to a particularly lush bed of nettles that bordered the bluebell wood. After a few minutes of hearty decapitations, she felt much better and was able to continue her journey without any further qualms.
She moved along the riverbank, tapping her stick along the old bricks of her boathouse, and then approached the walled vegetable garden, which had a blackberry bush spilling over the top of it with the sort of vigor that would have given the prince from Sleeping Beauty pause. She then lost quite a few minutes plucking the gorgeous berries from the bushes and interspersing her mouthfuls of blackberries with the last dregs of her whisky. This was more like it, she told herself. Life was for pleasure, and there was nothing more pleasurable than fresh fruit from the vine.
