‘Do you want to see the puppies now, sir?’ Carmichael asked, and had to cover his ears at the reply he received.
‘Get that great lump off’n ‘is trousers, Davey boy, and that clump off’n the bottom of ‘is coat. Like liquid gold, that is, on the garden, an’ I won’t put up with ’oity-toity strangers in fancy Lunnon clo’es, cummin’ on my land and tryin’ to steal it from roight under my very nose.’
As they walked back to the car, round the house and across the weedy front garden, Carmichael was bombarded with questions, but not about his uncle’s dogs, and not questions to which he knew the answers, offhand.
‘Do you know how much this jacket cost?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Do you know how much it will cost to get it cleaned and properly pressed – if it can be rescued at all, which I highly doubt?
‘No, sir.’
‘Have you any idea of the price of hand-made Italian shoes, Sergeant?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Or of a Jermyn Street shirt?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Or a hand-woven silk tie?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Or Irish linen trousers?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Do you think you could get a blanket out of the boot, because I can’t sit in the car seat like this?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Oh, and by the way, Carmichael,’ he added, his shoulders beginning to shake, (whether from the soaking he’d got, or from suppressed mirth, we shall never know).
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Happy birthday!’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘And please don’t make me visit any more of your relatives. Your wedding nearly killed me, and today, I consider you to have made a second attempt on my life. If this doesn’t stop, I may have to arrest you.’
‘I won’t, sir.’
‘And your blue fore-lock’s run where you got splashed!’
‘Thank you, sir.’
II½
Later that day, along with a great deal of steam, a steady stream of expletives wafted out of Falconer’s shower cubicle, along with words like ‘banjo,’ ‘dimwit’, ‘bumpkin’, ‘turnip,’ and ‘throttle’.
III
As Harry Falconer was scrubbing himself clean in the shower, fresh clothes laid out neatly on his bed for when he was dry, the two pubs in Shepford Stacey were receiving the first of their evening regulars, both establishments hoping for a good evening as it had been a Bank Holiday and the next day was Saturday.
In the Temporary Sign, Stevie Baldwin was behind the bar, awaiting orders, as Robbie Greenslade, the publican, wandered around the one large bar replacing beer mats as needed, as he went. His was usually the bar of choice for those in the holiday cottages, because there was always an atmosphere in The Ring o’ Bells that the locals had grown used to with time, but which made new customers feel uneasy, and happy to cross the road for somewhere with a more welcoming ambience.
Robbie was big on ambience. The lighting in his establishment was subtle, the colours rich, and a sexy saxophone album was usually on repeat play, but quietly, as background music should be. Its job was to soothe the ears, not drown the voice like a juke-box. He also put small bowls of peanuts and crisps on the bar at regular intervals, realising that this may affect his sales of such snacks marginally, but the salt in them would encourage folk to take in more liquid, and the only place they could obtain liquid refreshment in his establishment was from behind his bar. On balance, he won, hands down.
The food on offer was also a little less run-of-the-mill than most village pubs in the area, and his bar snacks included black pudding or gesiers salad, and poached eggs in Madeira sauce garnished with crispy lardons. All in all he gave value for money, but at slighter higher prices than the rival establishment.
His first customers of the evening drifted in, coagulating nicely around one big circular table. Stevie’s parents were first in, greeting their daughter with waves and big smiles. Frank and Patsy Baldwin liked to get out a few evenings a week, to give them a bit of a break from Frank’s mother, Elsie, who lived with them. If they went out on a Sunday lunchtime they always took her with them, but in the evening it got them away from her over-loud television and shouted commentary on what she was watching.
Next in was Anne Hammond, one half of the couple who ran the village shop. There was a ‘gung-ho’ film on the television that her husband Chris had particularly wanted to watch, so she had left him in charge of their twelve-year-old daughter, Isobelle, and grabbed the opportunity for a change of scene and livelier company, for she was a gregarious woman.
The final couple to complete the table entered just a minute or two after the others, and Vera and Letty Gorman from the post office joined the merry gang, out on parole from their various duties and obligations.
‘When shall we five meet again? And you can’t say it’s bad luck, because I said ‘five’, so it wasn’t quoting.’ Anne Hammond opened the proceedings. ‘What news, my dears? Oh, I’m feeling quite Dickensian, now. Anything from the school, Patsy? Has your Stevie heard anything?’
‘I don’t think so. Nothing she’s mentioned, anyhow,’ replied Patsy Baldwin, turning to glare at her husband, who was sitting beside her, muttering into his drink.
What he had actually uttered was, ‘Why don’t you ask her yourself, you nosy old biddy? She’s only over there at the bar,’ but his wife didn’t want their evening out soured before it had even begun.
Vera Gorman, the younger sister by two years, and the one registered as postmistress for the community, also had a question for the table at large. ‘Did anyone see the detectives? What are they like?’
‘Stevie said they were very good with the children, especially the really tall one. She said his name was Car … Car … Car … Carmichael – that’s what it was. She said he was quite young to be a detective sergeant in her opinion, and that he had bleached blonde hair. The other one was all right, she told me, but didn’t really seem comfortable with children, and acted a bit grumpy with the other one – detective, that is. That’s all I know. Now, who on earth do we think could have done it?’
‘Tramp passing through, or a wandering psychopath,’ was Letty Gorman’s contribution. ‘It so often is, in these detective stories. The detective spends two hundred pages suspecting everybody in sight, then it turns out to be somebody who hasn’t been in the story at all, and I think that’s cheating.’
‘It might be cheating in books, Letty, but it would be so much better if such were the case, here in our own village. Who wants to think that someone they know, someone that maybe they see every day, is capable of such a wicked deed?’
‘True, Anne; I hadn’t thought of it that way. I just get so frustrated when I’ve taken the trouble to walk to the mobile library van when the books I get out don’t play fair. A whodunit should be a whodunit, with no cheating.’
‘Are you still on about your blasted library books, Letty? Well, you won’t need to make a trip next time. You’ve got your very own whodunit, right here on your doorstep, and all the gossip goes through the post office, so you might have the opportunity to turn yourself into a real-life Miss Marple,’ said Frank Baldwin, smiling a little cruelly into his beer.
‘I should coco!’ added Letty’s sister, with a snort of laughter. ‘Catch our Letitia here facing up to a desperate murderer. She’d pee her pants in fright!’ and she laughed anew.
‘I’d probably do a lot worse than that,’ was Letty’s opinion. She had decided to take the teasing in good part. ‘I only want to read about murders: I don’t want to be caught up in one.’
‘Now, back to who might have done it.’ This was Frank Baldwin, deciding to take the matter seriously. ‘Do any of you remember that huge row between Audrey F-M and old Catchpole?’
Anne Hammond dredged her memory. ‘About the milk money?’
‘That’s right. He was responsible for paying the milk bill for the kiddies’ milk. If you
remember, the school carried on ordering it for years after the state schools stopped. And he used to settle up with the dairy half-termly. Then it came to light that he had been fiddling the order somehow, and skimming a bit off here and there, so she gave him his marching orders.’
‘I do remember, now you come to mention it, but I can’t remember what the outcome was. He’s working there again now.’ Anne asked, still frowning in an attempt to recall.
‘It was mended in the end, when the old vicar stepped in. No one else wanted to do the job, what with the hours spread all over the place, and the pay being so low, and Saul simply couldn’t manage on his pension, and was glad of a second chance. She had to back down and offer him his job back, which she didn’t like at all, but had no other choice.’
‘I bet she didn’t. And I’m willing to bet he didn’t like having to go back there, after what had happened. There was always an atmosphere, Stevie said, if they happened to bump into each other; which, of course, didn’t happen often, because he wasn’t around too much in the parts of the school where she was.’
‘And there were those awful twins with the funny name, that she expelled,’ interjected Anne Hammond, recalling an unpleasant conversation with the twins’ parents after a number of petty shop-lifting incidents, courtesy of their little darlings.
‘Bastard and Bollocks,’ added Frank Baldwin, grinning.
‘Language, Frank!’ exclaimed his wife in surprise.
‘That’s what Audrey F-M used to call them. It really amused Stevie. Their real names were … umm …that’s it! Castor and Pollux! Pretentious load of old rubbish, if you ask me.’
After a short interval of polite laughter, Vera Gorman posed the inevitable question. ‘But, surely their parents, or one of them, wouldn’t come back here after all this time and stab her in the eye?’
‘You never know what folk’ll do, if driven to it.’ And this was the final comment on the matter uttered by Letty Gorman, so steeped in detective fiction was she. But not so much that she didn’t know which way was up. ‘Your round, I do believe, Frank dear.’
‘Did I hear a desire for more drinks, me dearies?’ asked Robbie Greenslade, arriving at the table like a magically summoned genie. ‘And which of you delightful customers is the murderer?’
‘Robbie!’ exclaimed five voices in unison.
‘I only asked, didn’t I? For all you know, it might have been me, with one of my own kitchen skewers, because she slated my giblets salad, and it infuriated me into a homicidal rage.’
‘That was in very bad taste, Robbie,’ Anne Hammond chastened him.
‘Not at all, my dear lady. You haven’t tasted my giblets when they’re not fried to a crunch!’ he quipped back, not in the least embarrassed. ‘Same again all round? I’ll bring it over to you, save all those wrinkly old legs under my table.’
‘Robbie!’
‘I know: shut up!’ And he was gone in a whirl of incorrigible bonhomie.
IV
In the Ring o’ Bells, there were five people sharing two tables in one untidy group, and three others in the family room. At the two tables placed side-by-side were Saul Catchpole and Bill and Edith Findlater at one, and Flo Atkins and Margaret Darling at the other.
The Findlaters were a bit like the Baldwins across the road in the other pub, in that they occasionally sought refuge from a relative in a public house. In their case it was from their daughter, Harriet, who had been going on about what had happened yesterday, and then treating them to a blow-by-blow account of how she had been affected, and how she was feeling now, and how she would probably feel tomorrow.
It wasn’t that they disliked their own daughter, really, but she did get on their nerves, and they had never quite forgiven her for not leaving home, like other peoples’ offspring did. Why, Mrs Findlater had had a perfectly delightful afternoon with an unexpected visitor who had consented to share a pot of tea and a plate of chocolate biscuits, and she hadn’t said a word to Harriet about it.
She couldn’t get a word in edgeways, so she’d just leave her in the dark, and hope the incident was followed by a repeat performance, then she’d be able to show off a friend that her daughter knew nothing about, and she could say, ‘well, I tried to tell you, but you were too wrapped up in your own feelings to listen’. That would teach her!
Switching off this satisfactory mental image, she tuned back into what was going on in the here and now. It would appear that everyone in the group had empty, or nearly empty, glasses in front of them, and surreptitious glances were flitting round the two tables, trying to sus out who would get stung for the next round.
‘I’ll get these – on the house,’ announced the landlady, breaking the deadlock, as she had known she would have to. She knew the Findlaters would stand their round, but Saul and Flo would try to see the evening out without having to put their hands in their pockets at all. Not only a near necessity, it was a kind of game with them, to see who could spend the least in the course of an evening at the pub. ‘I’ll get doubles, shall I? Save time?’
Four nods of assent greeted this query, two with wickedly triumphant expressions. Margaret had also got the first round, was getting them doubles for the second, and, no doubt, Bill Findlater would feel obliged to get the next. That would be the point at which two members of the little quorum would move to the bar, to engage someone else in conversation, in the hopes of a last free drink or two before they tottered up the road to the Alms-houses.
‘So,’ said Flo, to get the conversational ball rolling again. ‘Who’s prime suspect for doing the old dear in, then? It wasn’t you, Saul was it? I remember that barney you had with her over the milk.’
‘It most certainly was not, and shut your mouth, you gabby old woman. There might be a bobby in here in plain clothes, just waiting to hear what we’re talking about.’
‘And the moon is made of green cheese, you stupid old fool! Look around you. We’re so early, we’re the only ones here, apart from Ernie behind the bar, and you’re never going to convince me that he’s a bobby in disguise.’
‘I was only saying! And what about that couple of old biddies down at the post office? Do you remember all the uproar there was about banking the dinner money there? That silly old Letty Gorman couldn’t add up for toffee. And then she lost one of the bags that the money was handed in in. Laugh? I nearly had kittens.’
‘It was all sorted out, Saul, and you know it,’ pointed out Edith Findlater. I know, because our Harriet told us all about it, although I’m not sure the atmosphere was ever right again between the school and the post office. Mrs Finch-Matthews opened a building society account shortly after that, and had to drive over to Carsfold on a Monday after school to hand the money in. I couldn’t see the point myself, but apparently she did it on a point of principle, and damn the inconvenience.’
‘Well, I can’t see Letty Gorman as chief suspect, can you?’ Bill Findlater asked of the table at large, just as Margaret returned with a tray laden with glasses.
‘What are we talking about?’ she asked, setting it down in the middle of the table as the others lifted their empty glasses to make room.
‘Murder!’ growled Bill, in a low sinister tone that made Margaret’s face drain of colour.
‘I say, are you all right, old girl?’ he asked, wondering that his little joke comment could have had such startling results.
‘’M fine,’ she mumbled, putting both hands out to steady herself on the table. Probably a bit too much of mother’s ruin, but then if I can’t indulge when it’s my own pub, it’s a rum do, isn’t it? I said: it’s a RUM do!’ she repeated, and gave a queer strangled laugh. ‘Joke! Drink up, me dearies, as the treat’s on me.’
‘We were just discussing who could have done that awful thing to Audrey up at the school,’ explained Edith Findlater, offering an ‘in’ on the conversation.
‘The Baldwins!’ Margaret declared baldly, and took a swig of her very large neat gin – no pub measures for her, not even doubl
es, these days!
‘The Baldwins? What, all of them, or just one?’
‘Just one,’ Margaret replied, her composure now completely recovered.
‘Which one in particular? Stevie? Frank? Patsy? Old Elsie? Little Spike?’ Saul Catchpole enquired, listing all the runners.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Margaret.’ Flo Atkins also rose to the family’s defence. What happened to Stevie was a pure accident, and no one can say otherwise.’
‘But if Madam had followed the lead of all the other schools in the area, instead of going her own way, saying there was no problem, then Stevie would still have two legs.’ This was Flo Atkins, adding an opinion she had held since the incident first happened. ‘You surely don’t think one of them suddenly got a bee in their bonnet about something that happened years ago, and turned homicidal, do you?’
‘I’m not sayin’ as I do, and I’m not sayin’ as I don’t. I merely put it forward as a theory. Have any of you lot got a better idea?’ Margaret’s enunciation was beginning to deteriorate, as she tried, once again and unsuccessfully, to find the answer to whatever was bothering her in the bottom of a glass.
‘What about you?’ asked Saul, with a wicked little chuckle. You always said it was her that turned your darling David – geddit? darling David Darling – into the jailbird he is now.’ This was dangerous territory, and Saul had, in fact, entered a minefield from which he was not to return unscathed.
‘Get out of here, you filthy liar. Get out of here with your accusing mouth and your lies and implications. You’re barred from this pub. You’re barred for life. How dare you implicate … How dare you insinuate … Get out of here! Get out! Get out! Get out!’
‘There, there, Margaret. Calm down and keep the noise down, will you? Do you want to drive all our other customers away?’ Ernie Darling had appeared at their table from behind the bar. His hands on Margaret’s shoulders, he crouched down and stared into her face, his countenance as expressionless as a stone mask, his eyes pleading for her to behave herself.
Pascal Passion (The Falconer Files Book 4) Page 7
