I pondered Nicholas’s suggestion of taking a break. Perhaps he was right and I really did need a little holiday: somewhere quiet and undemanding where I could recharge my batteries, or, to quote some American professor I had once heard lecturing on the wireless, get ‘reenergized’. Though whether the ‘re’ part was entirely applicable, I wasn’t sure. Energy has never played a great part in my life, and even during my ‘missionary’ phase, its display was largely a triumph of will over instinct. Still, given the present circumstances some sort of electrical surge might be no bad thing!
I brooded on the logistics of getting away – and the locations. In spite of Ingaza’s possibly well-meant offer, Brighton was definitely out. Apart from anything else, the thought of being dragged into Aunt Lil’s orbit was too awesome to contemplate. There was also the prospect of Eric …
No, I would need to go somewhere soothing, beautiful, and as remote from the south coast as feasible. The Scilly Isles perhaps – but Clinker went there. The Shetlands? No need to be excessive. Connemara and the place of my namesake? A glorious area, but overlaid with memories of fraught family holidays and Pa’s fishing fiascos.
Perhaps somewhere with religious links … Walsingham? Not with that east wind! St Columba’s Iona? Remote all right, and by all accounts with a distinctly spiritual ‘something’; but it necessitated a rough and questionable boat trip and I doubted if my stomach would stay the course. Besides, the very name sounded a trifle stark … whereas Lin-dis-farne held a soft, emollient note: a sound redolent of peace and soporific ease. And even as I murmured it to myself I could see ‘bare ruined choirs’, hear the lapping of gentle waves, the cry of the curlew, and the misty monkish orisons …
Yes, that was where I would go, to St Wilfrid’s own land, and soon! My imagination was gripped, my resolution firm, and I rushed to the telephone and dialled the number of the Reverend Pick.
‘I say, Pick, you wouldn’t like to oversee my parish for a few days, would you? There wouldn’t be much to –’
‘No,’ came the firm answer.
I took a deep breath and smiled winningly down the phone. ‘Oh, come on, Theodore, be a sport. I just need to get away for a spell to recharge the old batteries – you know the sort of thing!’
‘Not really,’ came the reply. ‘My leaves of absence are always planned well in advance. I am not one for leaping about at the drop of a hat.’
‘Well, neither am I,’ I replied hastily, ‘it’s just that I’ve been under a bit of pressure lately and could do with some time out – as our American friends would say!’
‘I suppose in plain English that means you want to skive off.’
‘Oh, come – that’s putting it a trifle brutally! Besides, you might recall that I was quite useful at your fête this year –’
‘How about next year?’
‘Oh yes, absolutely. That’s on!’
There was a pause. And then in a tone which for Pick sounded almost bright, he said, ‘Well, tell you what – I’ll lend you Barry. It’s time he got from under my feet. He can easily take a few services at your place – even do some house calls. In fact, come to think of it, if he were to arrive in time for Matins he could stay on till well after Evensong – every day.’
I thanked him for his most selfless offer, and in response to further insistent probing assured him of my presence at the wretched spring fête.
First hurdle over. The second was Primrose. Would she board the animals? Probably not. But nothing ventured …
To my amazement, and in view of the chinchilla fracas, Primrose was vaguely agreeable.
‘Well, if you must you must, I suppose. But a week is my absolute maximum: the dog’s all right, but I wouldn’t be able to stand that peculiar cat for any longer! Yes, bring them down … and then while you’re here you could also give the garden a good going over.’
‘Yes,’ I replied meekly. ‘Of course I could.’
Celebration all round! Much to do: maps to be consulted, accommodation booked, the motor prepared, parishioners notified. But first of all a grateful gin, a couple of gaspers, and this time a really good go on the keys! I summoned Bouncer in readiness for the performance. He came in toting his rubber ring, pottered over to the piano, and sat down with a look of benign expectancy. I raised my hands, poised for a spate of sparkling arpeggios … and then dropped them in my lap as the doorbell shrilled.
The dog barked and I cursed. However, thinking it might be Savage bearing fresh fairy cakes, I went into the hall hoping he might have time to share the gin, and along with Bouncer, enjoy the music. So beaming genially, I flung open the door.
Samson, not Savage, stood in the porch.
‘Good evening, sir,’ he intoned nasally. ‘Was just passing. Thought you’d like to hear the news.’
‘Oh yes?’ I said jovially. ‘Has one of my raffle tickets come up trumps? Or have you won the police prize for best salesman?’
He looked at me without expression.
‘No, sir. No, I don’t think either of those apply … You see, they’ve opened it again.’
‘Opened it? Opened what?’ I asked, still smiling.
‘The Fotherington case, the murder in Foxford Wood – they’ve reopened it. Just thought you might like to know, seeing as how you were a close friend of the deceased …’ And this time, it was he who smiled.
* See A Load of Old Bones
Also by Suzette A. Hill
A Load of Old Bones
Copyright
Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Constable, an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2008
Copyright © Suzette A. Hill, 2008
The right of Suzette A. Hill to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN : 978–1–84901–797–8
Bones in the Belfry Page 26
