PASCAL PASSION
ANDREA FRAZER
This book is dedicated to Winifred Powell (23.01.1914 – 09.03.2012), a woman who was loved by all, who loved her family dearly, and loved to read, too.
Maybe she can get this book from ‘www.kindle.god’, where, of course, all books will be free.
Shepford Stacey is an unassuming little village, its greatest asset being its small but excellent Church of England primary school. This delightfully old-fashioned establishment of only two classes, one of infants, the other of juniors, has been run by the same pair of ladies for decades. It is in the year that the headmistress, Audrey Finch-Matthews, is to retire, that the smooth running of this long-established educational establishment is interrupted by murder.
When Detective Inspector Harry Falconer and Detective Sergeant ‘Davey’ Carmichael of the Market Darley Police arrive to investigate, they discover a host of motives and grudges that reach right back through the years. As the Easter weekend grinds inexorably on its way, Death stalks the village again, and it suddenly becomes imperative that the murderer is caught before there are more fatalities. Falconer soon realises that this is not the work of an opportunistic psychopath passing through – and there is no indication that the slaughter will stop.
Pascal Passion is the fourth instalment of Andrea Frazer’s Falconer Files, a detective series chock-full of picture-postcard villages, dastardly deeds, and a delightful slice of humour.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2012 by Andrea Frazer
Originally published by Accent Press
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
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eISBN: 9781477878842
This title was previously published by Accent Press; this version has been reproduced from Accent Press archive files.
Other books by Andrea Frazer
The Falconer Files
Death of an Old Git
Choked Off
Inkier than the Sword
Murder at the Manse
Music To Die For
Strict and Peculiar
Christmas Mourning
Grave Stones
Death in High Circles
Falconer Files – Brief Cases
Love Me To Death
A Sidecar Named Expire
Battered To Death
Toxic Gossip
Driven To It
All Hallows
Death of a Pantomime Cow
Other adult fiction
Choral Mayhem
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Of the Shepford Stacey C of E Primary School:
Headmistress: Audrey Finch-Matthews
Teacher: Harriet Findlater
Classroom Assistant: Charlotte Chadwick
Dinner Lady: Stephanie ‘Stevie’ Baldwin
Patron: Rev. Septimus Lockwood
Caretaker: Saul Catchpole
Cleaner: Florence Atkins
Sundry pupils
Residents of Shepford Stacey
Allington, Meredith – married to Derwent, children Mercedes and Austin
Borrowdale, Martha – married to Seth, children Isaac, Jacob, and Maria
Bywaters-Flemyng, India – married to Hartley, son Sholto
Baldwin, Stephanie ‘Stevie’ – dinner lady, barmaid, and mother of Spike
Baldwin, Patsy and Frank – Stevie’s parents
Baldwin, Elsie – Stevie’s grandmother
Course, Caroline – staying in one of the holiday cottages
Darling, Ernest – married to Margaret and owns the Ring o’ Bells pub. Son David
Gorman, Vera – sister of Letty. Both run the village post office
Greenslade, Robbie – landlord of the Temporary Sign pub
Hammond, Chris – married to Ann. Daughter Isobelle. Runs the village shop
Leclerc, Gabriella – married to Morgan, son Lorcan
Macpherson, Maura – married to Cameron, son Angus
Smithers, George and Kathy – elderly couple staying in one of the holiday cottages
Snoddy, Adrian – married to Pippa, son Milo
The Officials:
Detective Inspector Harry Falconer
Detective Sergeant ‘Davey’ Carmichael
Sergeant Bob Bryant
PC Merv Green
PC Linda ‘Twinkle’ Starr
PC John Proudfoot
Superintendent Derek ‘Jelly’ Chivers
Dr Philip Christmas
Dr Hortense ‘Honey’ Dubois
Contents
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Introduction
Shepford Stacey is a relatively nondescript village. One can drive through it and not even notice it, for there is simply nothing to make it stand out from the other more picturesque villages of this area, and it is usually ignored by the tourist trade.
It had originally grown up just south of a monastery, but that was before Henry VIII had his huge snit and instituted the Dissolution. He believed that if you didn’t like the rules of the club you were in, then you ought to start a new one and write the rules to suit your own tastes, which is exactly what he did: an example followed by a certain Mr Cromwell, who also destroyed rather a lot of history and architecture, to the great loss of the public at large.
The sacking and burning of the monastery, however, did not mean the end of the settlement, as much agriculture had developed around the village to serve the monastery, and although the usual lines of commerce were disrupted by the destruction of the main customer’s headquarters, there were other markets in larger surrounding communities, to take their spare produce and turn it into hard cash. Thus the village survived.
If we fast-forward to the present, the old monastery ruins and the site of its gardens are still there, protected by National Heritage, but it is one of those sites that has little to recommend itself, except as a perfect place to let young children run and climb (suitably supervised) to their hearts’ content, and burn off as much energy before tea-time or bedtime as possible. For anyone who is not a child wishing to run around until he or she drops, it has little to offer. There is, therefore, no little booth selling tickets; there are no kind elderly folk offering to walk around the site with you, explaining how life used to be lived there. There is no twee shop lurking, selling postcards and tacky souvenirs, guidebooks and leather bookmarks ( suitably illustrated with the name of the place visited, and a crummy illustration done in gold, black, and white, to remind you of what it might have looked like if you had taken your glasses off and squinted horribly while you were there ). Admission is free and unsupervised.
Although it is fenced off, the site is accessible through a pair of wide gates that, at the moment, have allowed ingress to a caravan with three occupants. Whether or not the caravan has been granted permission to park on such a site is a mat
ter of much gossip in the village (for there is not much happening at this time of year, and any distraction is appreciated). Only the three occupants – or at least the two grown-ups – comprehend the viability of their presence there, and no one has had the radical idea of just asking them. The English ideal of never offending by prying holds dear in this little outpost of English life, thus prolonging the life of gossip, and giving it more ‘legs’ than it would have had if someone had just posed a simple question in the first place.
The village itself is built around a crossroads, with St Anselm’s Church at one corner (a ghastly Victorian Gothic revival), and the village shop diagonally opposite. The other two corners are occupied by the village’s two public houses. The one between the church and the shop on the south-east side is called The Ring o’ Bells, and it is not difficult to understand how it got its name. The pub on the corner on the north-west side is called, rather more puzzlingly, the Temporary Sign.
It had been known for many years as the Coach and Horses, and very happy everyone was with this – until the new landlord arrived, and decided that the sign was getting very tatty and needed repainting. Having hired a firm to carry out this procedure, he was instantly fascinated by the temporary sign they hung in its place to indicate that it was still a viable public house, and not closed down, as are so many country pubs these days ( due to the fact that if one imbibes little more than a thimbleful of any alcoholic beverage, he drives at peril of losing his licence forever, suffering a hefty fine, and being imprisoned for about a decade. Murder often carries a lesser penalty, it would seem! )
The landlord, infatuated with the rather unexpected renaming of his establishment (which he considered ‘trendy’), cancelled the repainting and paid to keep what was to have been a – well, a temporary sign. The company he dealt with were perfectly happy with the arrangement, because they got paid without having to produce a masterpiece, and the landlord was happy because he had had his little joke, and hoped that it would bring customers in just to enquire about it.
There was a small post office, but this was scheduled to close at the end of the year, unless a suitable location could be found to rehouse it, as the postmistress was due to retire, and the present post office was situated in what would become, and had been before, the main reception room of her house. To this end, it still retained its attractive bow window, for when it reverted back to its original usage.
The only other village amenities were a riding school, just south of the main village, and Blacksmith’s Terrace; five tiny dwellings that had been cleverly converted into holiday cottages by the couple that ran the riding school. Thus, could they provide not only the mounts for a horsey holiday, but the accommodation also, and collect on both fronts.
With these two sides to their business, they managed to make an all-year-round living. There were always people who liked to get away in the winter, even if only for Christmas and the New Year. There were also those who liked to hack around the countryside in the winter crispness. If one combined these with the local children who clamoured for lessons to such a degree that there was a waiting list, and the many gymkhanas that took place in the county to be practised for, and you have a healthy business, most of the income coming in the summer, but sufficient from winter lets, lessons, and hacks, to keep a family going all year round.
The only building likely to catch a casual passer-by’s eye was the terrace of alms-houses in The Main (literally the main street). Named boringly and predictably the Victoria and Albert Alms Houses, the architect had been a fan of Elizabethan architecture and, given a free hand by the village’s benefactor, had included mullioned windows and beautiful barley-twist chimneys in his plans. ( The result was nearly as eye-catching as that close of houses near Wells Cathedral that has had so much cinematic attention, and never fails to project one into a past century from a mere glance down it.)
As was stressed at the beginning of this introduction, there was little to attract a passing traveller and cause him to break his journey for a stay here. It was just a little village – not a hamlet, for it boasted a church, no matter how ugly – that got on with its existence without a huge influx of tourists in the summer months, and it was glad of that. Life was tranquil and peaceful.
(Author’s Note: author’s comments are in italics & bracketed)
Chapter One
Thursday 31st March
I
‘Good morning, Imogen. You know where the cake tin goes, don’t you, Charlotte?’
‘Good morning, Spike. Yes, I can see that Mummy’s been busy in the kitchen. Isn’t that lovely?’
‘Use your handkerchief, Milo dear, not your sleeve. Not a problem, Mr Snoddy. I can understand how difficult it is for you, living in a caravan like that. Why not hang on at the end of school and buy something delicious as a treat?’
‘Yes, Mummy will be cross if you scuff your lovely new shoes, Mercedes. Pick your feet up, dear, and walk properly. What a grown-up boy you are, Austin, carrying that big plastic box. In the foyer, Mrs Allington. The table’s just on the right.’
‘Angus MacPherson, don’t you let me hear you use that word again, or you’ll be staying in at playtime for the third time this week.’
‘Isaac Borrowdale, I want that chewing gum straight in the bin when you get inside. Do you understand? Straight away! I will not have a repeat of what happened on Monday.’
‘Don’t worry, Lorcan. I expect it’s the chilly wind. Thank you so much, Mrs LeClerc.’
She called into the school foyer, ‘Mrs Chadwick, do you think you could let Imogen see herself into the classroom? Lorcan here has had a little accident. Spare pants in the usual place. Thank you.’
As the children were delivered to the school door, many of the parents shot through the doors with tins or plastic containers, for there was to be a bake sale that day, as the school was breaking up for the Easter Holidays, and breaking up very late, for today was Maundy Thursday, the double Bank Holiday weekend almost upon them.
Thus did Audrey Finch-Matthews, long-since widowed headteacher of Shepford Stacey Church of England Primary School, welcome her charges to school, and call her thanks to the contributing mothers, on the last day of the spring term. As she cajoled and upbraided the youngest of the pupils, she patted her dark brown (dyed) curls into place and allowed herself a moment of smugness. Hers was a popular school and, although numbers were low at the moment, she had not an ounce of worry that it would close. The vicar had recently opened a waiting list, allowing children from other villages to apply to attend the school, and they should be packed to the rafters in September.
On the other side of the entrance, Harriet Findlater, fifty-seven-year-old spinster of this parish and teacher of the upper school class (seven- to eleven-year-olds), held court with the mothers delivering their offspring to school on this bright spring morning. Her mind was also on the school and its future, for Audrey Finch-Matthews would reach her sixtieth birthday this year and Harriet hoped, with a burning fervour, that she would retire and give her a chance to run the school, before she had to retire herself.
‘Come along, Sholto, and stop pulling on Mummy’s arm so. If you don’t get a move on you’ll be late, and then where would we be, eh?’ Audrey asked, seeing India Bywaters-Flemyng struggling to insert her son through the school gates.
Picking up his pace, the five-year-old stopped in front of Mrs Finch-Matthews and asked, ‘Where would we be, Miss? I expect you know, ’cos you’re a teacher,’ his face a mask of innocence.
‘Sholto! Mind your manners! I’m sorry, Mrs Finch-Matthews, but we do encourage him to be inquisitive and ask questions,’ Mrs Bywaters-Flemyng explained, a sly smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.
‘Hm! Well, perhaps you ought to teach him the difference between a genuine enquiry and an enormous piece of cheek. Young as he is, I’m convinced he’s bright enough to tell the difference, even if Mummy isn’t,’ the head teacher answered, being completely un-enamoured of India’s super
ior ways and attitude to others. She wasn’t the only one around here with a double-barrelled name, and she was just going to have to live with the idea.
Really, the cheek of the little imp, and his mother hadn’t upbraided him with even a look of disapproval. Whatever was the world coming to? When she was Sholto’s age she would have been awarded a clip round the ear for such facetiousness, followed by another one, when her mother heard about what had happened. How times had changed since she herself had started school.
There was not usually impertinence of this kind from the pupils: it was something that had arrived with Sholto Bywaters-Flemyng and, if she had anything to do with it, would end with him too. She had always been very strict about respect for adults, and that pint-sized chancer and his arrogant mother were not going to change anything.
‘What extraordinary names the children have these days, don’t you agree, Harriet?’ she asked, as they entered the school after the last of their pupils, and closed the doors on the outside world for the last time this term.
‘Oh, I do agree, Audrey. It was all Susans, Lindas, and Jennifers in our day: and good old Steven, John, and Peter for the boys. Life was so much simpler then, like the names.’
‘I couldn’t agree more, Harriet. Just look at the Allingtons. Their six-year-old (bless her cotton socks) is called Mercedes, and their two-year-old is called Austin. Have they got some sort of subconscious car fetish, or is it just me, unable to keep up with the times?’
Treating this as a rhetorical question on her own part, she continued, ‘Do you remember those pretentious parents who sent their ghastly precocious twins here a couple of years ago? And we had to take the extraordinary step of permanently excluding them, the little devils?’
‘Castor and Pollux,’ confirmed Miss Findlater.
‘I always thought of them as Bastard and Bollocks, I must admit,’ confessed Mrs Finch-Matthews in a stage whisper.
Pascal Passion (The Falconer Files Book 4) Page 1
