Trick or Murder?: A Sophie Sayers Village Mystery (Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries Book 2)

by Debbie Young

  Dinah pulled a face. “Never mind the performance, what a ridiculous passage to choose. Does he really think he’s going to win anyone’s hearts and minds that way?”

  “I gather he was once married,” said Jessica, whose contribution to the evening had been a sweetly romantic poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

  “Can you imagine what that courtship must have been like?” Dinah’s look of dread made us all laugh, except Carol, who blushed and headed off in the direction of the ladies’.

  To my relief, I spotted Hector coming towards me bearing two glasses of wine and the excuse I needed to break away from the group. He appeared to be studying my dove-grey shoes. They were a little on the tight side, as May’s feet were smaller than mine, but the soft suede was very forgiving. Then his eyes travelled up my cornflower blue tights before settling on my drop-waisted dress.

  “It’s the same costume that I wore on the float,” I said as he handed me a glass.

  “Yes, I remember,” he said, though I bet he didn’t. Men never remember things like that. Damian, my ex-boyfriend, couldn’t have described a single item in my wardrobe after we’d been together for seven years.

  I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot under his gaze. “Don’t you think it’s strange that everyone in this village seems to spend half their time dressed up as someone else? That’s not exactly normal, is it? It’s amazing none of us ever get mistaken for other people. You’d better look out when you’re the Beast for Halloween. People might think you’re Billy.”

  “Now, now, that’s no way to talk about our best customer.”

  “He was the best of customers, he was the worst of customers…” For that erudite jest I had to thank Jacky, who, dressed as Charles Dickens, had read the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities. I’d made a mental note to read the rest of it some time. It sounded all right.

  “That’s the thing, though, Sophie. We’re not judgmental in the way the vicar is. In Wendlebury, we take people as they are. Going around criticising everyone is not the way to endear yourself to the community. And he’s doing it in spades.”

  Dinah nodded. “You’re right there, Hector. If Billy had turned up in a cocktail frock and stilettos and read James Joyce’s Ulysses, people would have accepted it. The vicar needs to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes for a change.”

  “I’d love to see the vicar in Billy’s stilettos.” I laughed, thinking of Billy’s habitual wellies, rain or shine.

  “That’s how rumours start,” said Hector as Carol returned from the ladies’.

  But a jest wasn’t enough to mollify Dinah on the warpath. “Well, I wish the vicar would try walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, in a straight line in any direction. That would at least get him a mile away from the village. Otherwise, someone else will send him packing before long, and there’ll be no shortage of volunteers.”

  “This being Wendlebury, I’m sure they’ll form an orderly queue,” said Hector mildly. But no-one rushed to the vicar’s defence, not even Carol.

  Hector stayed behind after the rest of the audience had left to help me and the Writers clear up. As with any event in the Hall, all traces had to be removed, dishes washed, and chairs and tables stacked in the store cupboard ready for whoever had booked the Hall next. As Hector and I left the Hall together, he took my hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world. We rejoined the High Street in companionable silence. Once we had crossed the road to the bookshop, he paused and turned me to face him, putting his hands gently on my shoulders.

  “Do you know, I think we might just have had our first date?”

  My squeak of excitement was quickly extinguished by a soft kiss. Then he drew back to speak. “You read very well, by the way. Everyone did. You chose a good passage, too. It was a fine evening’s entertainment till the last act put a damper on events.”

  I sighed. Why did Mr Neep have to spoil everyone’s fun all the time?

  We quickly said goodnight, then, apart from the squeak of my steps across slippery brown leaves on the pavement, I wandered home in silence, alone in the dark.

  11 Poetic Licence

  I turned up for work the next day just as Hector was flipping the door sign from ‘Closed’ to ‘Open’. I confess my heart also did a bit of a flip at his welcoming smile.

  He held the door open for me to enter. As I hung my coat, scarf and beret behind the counter, I watched him detour to the window display to give our clerical spider a quick slap.

  “And good morning to you, vicar.”

  Here we go again, I thought with a sigh. “Hector, forget about Mr Neep. Just avoid him. It’s not as if you have to go to church, and it doesn’t sound as if he’ll be darkening the shop’s door again. It’s like my fear of crocodiles. My simple solution: don’t go near any crocodiles.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. There aren’t any crocodiles in Wendlebury.”

  “Yes, but no-one’s asking you to be Neep’s best friend. Just ignore him.”

  He frowned. “It’s not that easy in a community this size, Sophie. ‘No man is an island’.”

  “No man is in Ireland?”

  At my blank look, Hector strode over to the poetry section, opening a collection of poetry by John Donne and reading aloud:

  “No man is an island,

  Entire of itself,

  Every man is a piece of the continent,

  A part of the main.

  If a clod be washed away by the sea,

  Europe is the less.

  As well as if a promontory were.

  As well as if a manor of thy friend’s

  Or of thine own were:

  Any man’s death diminishes me,

  Because I am involved in mankind,

  And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

  It tolls for thee.”

  “Oh, an island. I see.” I joined him by the poetry books and pulled down another volume, which happened to be by Edward Lear. I couldn’t help but giggle at the first poem I found. “Here you go, console yourself by thinking of the vicar as The Bong with the Luminous Nose, and he’ll seem far less troublesome.” I looked up at Hector. “We used to play a game like this at school, telling each other’s fortunes by opening books at random.”

  At last I’d made him smile. “That sounds like witchcraft to me. Just right for Halloween.”

  “I won’t tell the vicar if you won’t.”

  He took the book from me, consulted the contents page and tapped a title. “OK, if you’ll be the Pussycat to my Owl.” I was just about to grab the book from him to find out whether that was a good thing when a group of school-run mums arrived, this time with a few children in tow. I slipped it back on the shelf and headed over to set up the morning coffees. The mums were in a mood of suppressed hysteria as half-term week was approaching and the mild weather was forecast to break, so Hector turned on some New Age relaxation music to soothe them.

  When they’d gone, he called over to me where I was busy clearing the tables. “Speaking of great writers, how’s your first parish magazine column shaping up? It’s due in today, you know.”

  I did know, and I had been fervently trying to forget about it. The pleasant evening at the Big Read had been followed by a sleepless night wishing I’d never let Hector persuade me to become a regular contributor. However, Ella had announced in the October issue that my new column “Travels with my Aunt’s Garden” would appear from November onwards, so now I was committed. Hector was very supportive, probably because he saw it as another subliminal advert for the bookshop. I was struggling to feel as confident myself, and hadn’t yet managed to write a single usable word. Plenty of unusable ones were currently nestling in the paper recycling box at home.

  Then, washing up the coffee cups, I had a sudden brainwave.

  “I know, why doesn’t Ella just print my piece that won the prize in the Village Show? Then I can write a fresh column next month.”

  I tried to avoid the disappointment in
Hector’s eyes. “OK, but only if you promise me you’ll start working on your December piece straight away. And out of courtesy, you should pop in to school this lunchtime to check that she’s happy with that. Don’t just email her and assume she approves. It’s a tough job editing the parish mag, so don’t mess her about.”

  “OK, Mum.” I felt suitably chastised.

  As soon as the school lunch bell sounded, I donned my coat to visit Ella.

  12 Thank God It’s Friday

  I’d never been into the school during its lunch hour before. It was much noisier than when the children were in the classroom. Though there were only ninety children in the school, the sound effects from the playground suggested there were several hundred outside in the clear autumn sunshine, all engaged in a shouting competition.

  In Ella’s office there was relative calm, once she’d despatched a small boy with a plaster on his grazed knee. I explained to her my suggestion for my first ever column in the Parish News, without letting on that I didn’t have an alternative text.

  “I thought it would help remind anyone who read my prize-winning entry on Show Day why you asked me to write a regular column. Then next month I’ll start writing from scratch.”

  To my surprise, Ella put up no resistance to my proposal.

  “Fine, that’s one less person for me to chase now.” She pulled a small notepad out of her handbag and put a tick against my name on a largely unticked list. “Can you ping it across to me by email to save me having to type it up?”

  “Sure, as soon as I get home tonight.”

  Now that I’d stopped worrying about my own problem, I had the leisure to notice that she was not looking happy.

  “Not having a good day, Ella?”

  “It’s that bloody vicar again. He’s just been in here telling me he wants to make an important announcement about Halloween in our celebration assembly tomorrow – you know, the service at the end of the school day on Fridays that is open to parents and grandparents. Somehow, I have a suspicion that his announcement will not give us much cause to celebrate. I hardly dare go to the assembly myself.”

  After she’d been so generous about my lassitude with my column, I wanted to show moral support. “Can anyone come to it? Could I?”

  “God, Sophie, yes, please do. We could do with another voice of reason in the audience. Or you could just bring gin.”

  And so on Friday afternoon at half past two, I took a seat at the back of the school hall with the various parents, grandparents, carers and pre-school-age siblings who had come to join the traditional end-of-week-service. Ella had primed me to expect an innocuous, upbeat parade of children showing off prizes and achievements, and a sharing of house points and birthdays. On special occasions a guest might be invited to give a brief talk to the children, but in this case the vicar had asked himself. He’d been reluctant to outline exactly what he planned to say, but the Head, Mrs Broom, had told Ella to let him have carte blanche.

  “After all, what harm can a vicar do?” she’d asked.

  When all the school announcements had been made and the happy birthdays wished and sung, the vicar was invited to speak. He stalked to the front of the hall from where Mrs Broom had been leading the service, and launched into his message.

  “I understand that in years gone by the village of Wendlebury Barrow has seen fit to celebrate Halloween. But as the new spiritual guide of your community, it is my duty of care to advise you to reconsider. Do you know what Halloween really means, children?”

  He paused, panning the rows of small children sitting cross-legged in front of him. Welcoming the opportunity for audience participation, they shouted out a few speculative answers.

  “Sweets.”

  “Treats.”

  “Fancy dress.”

  “Being sick.”

  “The man next door frightening Mummy.”

  “Having to help my little brother cross the road.”

  The vicar continued as if they had remained silent.

  “It means, my children, that you are colluding with the Devil – the very enemy we are trying to defeat. Halloween is the worship of Satan. And begging for sweets from your neighbours turns them into enablers of gluttony, donning the robes of iniquity—”

  “Please, sir, what’s an iquity?” came a voice from within the top class. Miss Walker, the teacher in charge of literacy, frowned as she scribbled down the words she’d have to explain to the children later. The Vicar’s opaque speech had already lost the younger children, who were gazing out of the window, twiddling their hair, or tickling those sitting in front of them. Two of the tiniest in the front row had fallen asleep, propped up against each other. One of them was very gently snoring.

  “We all know the evils of sugar, don’t we, mothers and fathers? We’ve all read about the government’s proposed sugar tax?” Casting God and the government on the same side was an interesting strategy. Mr Neep became more animated, pacing back and forth across the width of the hall, like a spider frantically spinning a web to trap a passing cloud of flies. Some of the children in the front row became distressed, probably fearing he would tread on them. One started to cry. Impervious as he was, Mr Neep realised he needed to cut to the chase and resort to plain speaking for once.

  “A school founded by the church is no place for Satanic rites. So there will be no Halloween celebrations in school this year.”

  At this clear pronouncement, enough gasps went up from around the hall to create a temporary shortage of oxygen, but unfortunately not enough to silence Mr Neep. He reiterated.

  “None of the trappings of the modern Halloween, either. No trick-or-treating. No decorations. No costumes. And the PTA Halloween Disco is cancelled.”

  Rumblings of discontent quickly rose to a roar of protest, peppered by wails from some of the children.

  “But we loves our Halloween Disco.”

  “These nippers don’t do no harm asking for sweets. Gets them off the Xbox for the night.”

  “But what am I to do with all these lollies I’ve just bought in?”

  “What about the money the disco raises for the PTA?”

  Some of the parents got up from their seats, gesturing at the vicar and shaking their fists. The vicar took a few steps back, bumping into the piano behind him. He steadied himself against it, apparently surprised at the upset his ruling had caused.

  The objections increased in volume until Mrs Broom took charge. She’d been sitting at the side of the hall during the vicar’s speech, but now returned to stand beside him and held up her hands for silence. She was in a difficult position, having to report to him as he was a school governor, but needing to keep her school community happy, not least the PTA.

  “Now, now, children, mums, dads, grannies, grandads – I’m sure the vicar’s not saying this lightly, are you, Mr Neep? I assume you have a better plan in store? After all, you wouldn’t like to disappoint your new congregation, would you?”

  I could see why she’d been made a headmistress.

  Mr Neep took a few steps forward again. “Mrs Brush, you assume correctly.” He sounded to me as if he was playing for time. “Of course, I’ll be glad to offer an alternative diversion. There will be an excellent All Souls’ Day service in the church on November the second.” He scanned the adults to gauge whether that would be sufficient compensation, but they just muttered contemptuously to each other. I wondered how much experience he’d had with Jedis. “Of course, four days later it will be time to celebrate Guy Fawkes’ Night.”

  “Guy Forks Knives? What’s that, Mrs Broom?” This came from one of the younger children.

  Mrs Broom smiled indulgently and turned to the vicar. “I’m afraid we haven’t marked Guy Fawkes’ Night in Wendlebury for years, Mr Neep. Health and safety, you know. If the PTA were to stage a bonfire party, we’d have to pay more for insurance than we could hope to raise in admissions. We simply daren’t risk lighting fireworks in the presence of small children in our school field. If families w
ant to see a firework display, they go to the big one at Slate Green.”

  Mr Neep looked as if he considered he had won.

  “My dear Mrs Brush, you are missing the opportunity for political education there. Think of the fun of burning Guy Fawkes in effigy, celebrating his failed attempt to blow up our Houses of Parliament and impose the evils of Catholicism on our country.”

  “You want us to burn someone at the stake?” asked one of the mums. “I don’t call that very Christian.”

  “That’s terrorism, that is!” said another.

  The lady sitting next to me whispered, “It’ll give the kids nightmares if we start setting fire to people. They get enough of that on the telly.”

  Mrs Broom came forward again. “I’m sorry, Mr Neep, but we simply can’t celebrate Guy Fawkes’ Night in school. Think of the risk assessment I’d have to do. There’s none of that to worry about with the Halloween Disco.”

  An elderly gentleman in the back row waved his walking stick for attention.

  “I’d rather have my grandson go round the houses asking for sweets than sitting on the pavement asking for a Penny for the Guy like we did in my day. And it wouldn’t be pennies they’d be asking for, either. Pennies don’t go nowhere these days. They’d be tapping us for folding money. Much cheaper to give ’em enough lollipops on Halloween to shut ’em up for the week.”

  “We don’t want to wait till Christmas for our next PTA Disco,” said one glamorous-looking mum standing at the back. I could imagine her throwing provocative shapes on the dance floor.

  “Or miss out on the fundraising,” said a dad in a business suit.

  But the vicar would not be gainsaid. He raised his hand to stop their protests in mid-flow. “Do not trouble yourself, Mrs Brush. The Guy Fawkes’ Night party will be at the vicarage. The diocesan insurance will cover all eventualities.”

  Ella, responsible for the school’s insurance, shot me a doubtful look, muttering, “What about acts of God?”