Smile and be a Villain

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘White wine,’ I told Alan. ‘Small. I need a clear head for this.’

  It might have been a full minute after he brought my wine and his pint back to the table that a woman asked if she could join us. She looked vaguely familiar. ‘We met at church the other day,’ she said. ‘I was doing the flowers. Pat Vickers. And you’re Mr and Mrs Nesbitt.’

  I let it pass. ‘Oh, yes, now I remember you.’ I remembered, too, that she had been ambivalent, at best, about Abercrombie. I raised my glass in salute.

  ‘I understand you’ve been spreading some rumours about our late parish helper.’

  With her I felt no need to tiptoe. I nodded to Alan, who said, ‘I’m afraid they’re more than rumours. The information came from his American bishop. He was days away from a criminal charge when he left. His church is missing a great deal of money, and apparently there’s ample evidence that he embezzled it.’

  ‘Nothing they can do about it now,’ she said after a thoughtful sip of her wine.

  ‘No. Fortunately or unfortunately.’

  ‘Fortunately for him, I’d say.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t imagine they’ll ever get the money back.’

  ‘It won’t be easy. I’m told he’s been spending quite freely.’

  ‘Well, I for one am not altogether surprised. I thought from the start he was a bit too good to be true. When someone sets about to act saintly, it’s almost always a sign that the other thing is lurking about somewhere.’

  ‘And yet,’ I put in, ‘so many people at the church loved him.’

  Pat shrugged. ‘I’m a teacher, have been for years. History, at the school here. One learns a good deal about character.’

  ‘One does. I was a teacher myself, eleven-year-olds. It wasn’t long before I could spot a troublemaker when I first laid eyes on him. Or her, though at that age most of the worst brats were the boys.’

  ‘I teach all ages. It’s a small school. And you know, it’s remarkable how little they change from babyhood to age fourteen. Not all of them, but most.’

  ‘I imagine the problem children become even more so at adolescence.’

  She shook her head ruefully. ‘Frightful! Raging hormones … I actually feel sorry for them, you know. It’s a terrible time in one’s life. Everything changes so fast, and you don’t know whether you want the familiar security of childhood back, or the freedom of adulthood, and you don’t understand your own emotions … terrible time.’

  ‘You know,’ I said, ‘I’ve never quite understood the Faust legend. Myself, I wouldn’t want my lost youth back at any price. If the devil offered it to me, I’d throw it back in his face.’

  We both laughed. ‘Of course, we’re women,’ said Pat. ‘It might be a little different for those cursed with the Y chromosome.’

  Alan looked a little taken aback, and I thought it was time to change the subject. ‘But you were saying, about Mr Abercrombie …?’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked around the room and said in a lowered voice, ‘The word is that you both think he was murdered.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ I looked at Alan for help.

  ‘That’s not true, Ms Vickers, and I hope you’ll help quell that rumour. It is true that we think there might be the bare possibility that his death was not entirely accidental.’

  She looked amused. ‘A good many of my older pupils have become adept, when an essay must be of a given length, in using twice as many words as necessary to make a statement. I’ve learned to translate. To me, it sounds like you’ve just said you think he was murdered.’

  ‘There’s a difference, I assure you. We have some doubts, yes. But there is absolutely no evidence to support a charge of murder against anyone. You have probably heard that I am a retired policeman, and believe me, I do know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Evidence is one thing. Belief is another.’

  This was getting into dangerous territory. I turned the argument back on her. ‘And what do you think, Pat? Did he fall, or was he pushed?’

  ‘Me? I think he probably fell. But I know of several people who would have liked to push him.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Oh, no, you’re not going to trap me into saying. I’ve not yet had enough wine to be indiscreet!’

  Alan took that as a hint and got up to buy her another, as Robin came to our table. ‘Still at it, Mrs Martin? Still trying to convict someone of an act that should win him a medal? If such an act was committed, which is plainly open to doubt. I’d have thought better of you, Pat, than to encourage such rubbish.’

  ‘Stop bullying me, Robin. I’ll say what I like, thank you very much. I was no friend of Abercrombie’s, and neither were you.’

  Her voice was rising, and heads were turning our way. This could turn into a row. I stood. Alan brought Pat her glass of wine and took my arm. ‘Good evening, everyone.’

  We got out before things got ugly.

  ‘Whew!’

  ‘Yes. I don’t know that we learned anything from that except that we’re treading on sensitive ground. Tonight, my dear, is definitely a night to stay in our cave and eat leftovers.’

  I had nightmares that night, brought on partly by an incompatible mixture of cuisines and partly by anxiety. I didn’t remember details in the morning, only a sense of disquiet and lack of rest, which, along with the weather, led to an attack of grumpiness.

  ‘Rain! We don’t need any more rain. We can’t do anything, we can’t go anywhere – drat!’

  ‘We have a car,’ Alan reminded me patiently. ‘We can go anywhere we need to go. Here – I made coffee.’

  Alan thinks any of my moods can be cured by an appropriate beverage. Coffee, tea, wine … and the infuriating thing is, he’s usually right. I sat up in bed and sipped the coffee sullenly, but I began to feel better, almost unwillingly.

  ‘Had a bad night, love? You were very restless.’

  ‘Oh, I suppose I did. I’m sorry if I kept you awake. Was I talking in my sleep?’

  ‘The odd groan now and again. Nothing serious. And you didn’t keep me awake. I went back to sleep straightaway. What was it about?’

  ‘I don’t know. I woke up with a sense of panic, but I don’t know why. I have a vague feeling it might have been one of those awful dreams of being chased and not able to run. Or maybe I was the one doing the chasing. Anyway, it was unpleasant. Sorry to take it out on you.’

  ‘That, my dear, is one of the things a spouse is for. Let’s go down to breakfast and talk about interesting things we can do in the rain.’

  When I was a child I loved to walk in the rain, but some pleasures fade with age. I don’t like cold, wet feet or glasses so obscured with rain that I can’t see, or treacherous wet cobblestones. Of course, we did have a car. But what was there to do indoors on this island?

  We talked about it over breakfast. ‘I don’t want to sit around and wait for people to come and talk to us again,’ I said with determination. ‘We’re making enemies left and right.’

  ‘Or pro and con, one might say. The pro-Abercrombie faction thinks we’re demeaning his memory, and the antis think we’re looking for his murderer, whom they don’t especially want found. Not that they’d put it that way.’

  ‘No. But it’s true. Alan, I’m out of ideas, short of turning the whole mess over to the police.’

  ‘Who have already marked it “case closed”. Or rather, never opened. I think we need to let it rest for a while and wait for inspiration to strike.’

  ‘I’m not feeling very inspired. This weather shuts down my brain cells.’

  ‘So let’s wake them up. I’m told the museum is quite good, and would give those brain cells of yours some exercise. And when we tire of that, we can go around the corner to the library. There’s a display there that you missed before, and I think you’ll like it.’

  It sounded like a rather dreary way to spend a dreary day, but the alternatives were limited. I finished my coffee and acquiesced. ‘But Morning Prayer first.’

  ‘We may be royal
ly snubbed.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ I badly needed a dose of serenity, and the lovely words of the Book of Common Prayer always soothed my soul.

  We timed our arrival at the parish church so that there was little time to talk to anyone, and left promptly at the conclusion of the blessing, earning some disapproving looks in the process. But as I’d said, it didn’t really matter. We had walked to the church, it being just across the street, but Alan wondered if I wanted to drive to the museum.

  ‘I don’t think so. Where would we park? It’s not that far away, and the rain isn’t as bad today.’

  ‘It could get worse rapidly. Island weather is capricious.’

  ‘If it does, we’ll head straight back to Belle Isle, where we can get into dry clothes.’

  The museum building itself was interesting, being the old schoolhouse – really old; a plaque on the wall showed a date of 1790. The inscription was in French, but such simple French that even I could read the basic facts of the school’s founding by one Jean Le Mesurier, governor of the island at the time.

  Inside, the place didn’t show its age. It was clean and bright, and the exhibits turned out to be far more interesting than I had anticipated. I was captivated by the display of artefacts from the Elizabethan shipwreck, which included several cannons in remarkably good condition. ‘They’ve undergone extensive conservation, of course,’ said another visitor in response to my admiring comments. ‘Still, it is amazing, isn’t it? All those years in saltwater, and here they are. Have you seen the muskets?’

  There was, in fact, a great deal to see. Alan, who remembered almost nothing of World War Two but had lived as a child with the terrible aftermath, was drawn to artefacts from the German occupation he’d been reading about. ‘Slave labour camps,’ he murmured to me. ‘Horrible.’

  History can be terrifying or amusing or instructive, but it is almost never boring. I was amazed to discover that two hours had passed when an attendant came to us and apologetically announced that the museum was closing for lunch. ‘We’ll reopen at two thirty, and no one will charge you another admission fee if you want to come back then.’

  ‘Goodness! It felt like five minutes,’ I said to Alan when we were back on the street, where the rain had diminished to a fine mizzle. ‘This business of shutting down over the lunch hour: so very continental.’

  ‘We’re closer to France than to England,’ Alan reminded me. ‘And France, or at least Normandy, ruled here for quite some time. Now, are you hungry, or shall we pop over to the library?’

  ‘The library’s closing in just a few minutes,’ said the museum lady, who was just locking the door behind her as she left. ‘They’ll open at two thirty as well.’

  ‘It’s a conspiracy,’ I said with a giggle. ‘Let’s get a sandwich or something and then have a nap.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  One need never go hungry in Alderney. There’s food of one sort or another everywhere you look. We found a little takeaway in Victoria Street, P.J.’s Pantry, where we got a couple of jacket potatoes, in a waterproof bag so we could get them back to our lodging intact. Then we settled down to our accustomed nap. After a disturbed night, I was more than ready for a respite, and fell heavily asleep.

  I wasn’t even quite fully awake after Alan roused me and got me in motion toward the library. ‘What’s so important to see at the library?’ I grumbled. ‘I’m still sleepy.’

  ‘You always say if you nap too long in the afternoon you won’t be able to get to sleep at night.’

  ‘I was making up for last night. And we bought lots of books. Why not just read them?’

  ‘This isn’t a book. You’ll like it. Trust me.’

  The rain had stopped, but the world was still very wet. We cut through the churchyard for what Alan said was a shortcut. I usually enjoy churchyards, but today this one seemed gloomy, the branches of its trees bowed down with rain, dripping sullenly onto the gravestones. I thought about the hard decision the church authorities had to make about whether to bury the remains of William Abercrombie in consecrated ground, and sighed as we splashed along the path.

  The assistant greeted us pleasantly. ‘I believe you may have visited before, yes? Christine told me about you. Did she say that you can borrow books during your stay on Alderney, if you want? We require a deposit, but it will be refunded when you return them.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Alan, ‘but today I had something else in mind. I wanted to show my wife the Finale.’

  ‘Huh?’ I said brilliantly. ‘What are you talking about?’

  He turned me around and pointed. ‘Voilà!’

  I looked. And looked again. And looked up, puzzled. ‘But – what’s it doing here? And where’s the rest of it?’

  ‘This is the rest of it,’ the assistant said with a chuckle, and went on to explain. ‘You’ve seen the original Bayeux Tapestry?’

  ‘Yes, many, many years ago. My parents took me on a brief trip to Europe as a gift when I graduated from college – er, university.’ It should perhaps be explained that the Bayeux Tapestry is not a tapestry at all, but a massive piece of embroidery, done on linen about twenty inches wide and well over two hundred feet long. ‘The guide told us it was a needlework record of the Norman Conquest, done by William’s queen and her ladies.’

  ‘They used to think so. Now, they’ve decided they know really very little about it – who made it, or when, or even where.’

  ‘Not at Bayeux?’

  ‘No, it’s been on display there for a long time,’ she said, ‘at present in a lovely museum built expressly for it, but experts think it was probably created somewhere else. At any rate, the original ends in a ragged edge, so it’s obvious that part of it is missing. Books have been written about it, and a few years ago two of our residents decided to create what might be the missing scenes. In fact our own Kate Russell – she’s on the library committee – started the project, and Robin Whicker, whom you’ve met, researched eleventh-century Latin for the inscriptions. It’s lovely, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s amazing.’ I looked at it more closely. ‘I don’t remember the original well. It’s been over fifty years, for Pete’s sake! But this looks exactly like it, as nearly as I can recall. I can hardly believe it’s brand new.’

  ‘We’re very proud of it, as you can imagine. You would scarcely credit the research that went into making sure that the linen was the right texture and colour, the yarn dyed with the same vegetable dyes, the stitches matched to the original. Everyone on the island was invited to take a stitch or two, and quite a few did. We also had some guest stitchers, including Charles and Camilla! Look.’ She showed us a small picture of the two royals sitting at the tapestry, studying it industriously. ‘And this is my favourite detail.’ She pointed to a small bit of the lower border of the last scene, where four stylized animals posed. ‘These are for the Channel Islands, traditional symbols. The donkey for Guernsey, the toad for Jersey, our own Alderney puffin and the English lion with his tail arched protectively over all.’

  I spent quite a little time studying details: the tiny, perfectly set stitches, the bright colours, and especially the little animals and symbols that decorated the top and bottom borders. I could have wished for more light, but I realized that textiles are sensitive to light, and the creators of this masterpiece wanted it to last – perhaps as long as the original, now looking good for its thousandth birthday later this century.

  When we finally left the library at closing time, I gave Alan a hug. ‘That was the perfect antidote to everything that’s been going on the past few days. Thank you!’

  ‘And the rain has stopped. While you were lost in admiration of the tapestry, I checked the online weather forecast for Alderney. It’s set fair for the next few days, so tomorrow we can go exploring to our heart’s content.’

  ‘Lovely. Meanwhile let’s stop at the supermarket and pick up some supper fixings. I don’t feel like going out tonight. It’s around here somewhere, isn’t it?’
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  ‘Just down this way.’

  Once more I blessed Alan’s sense of direction.

  As I was stowing our little cache of edibles in our temporary larder, my phone rang. Or rather, it played the first few bars of the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, a favourite piece of music I had chosen as my ringtone. It startled me; I’d had no calls while on Alderney. I managed to find the thing in my purse just as it stopped ringing. I looked at the caller ID still displayed: Nigel Evans, our young friend back in Sherebury.

  I felt that instant alarm occasioned by an unexpected phone call. What was wrong? His family? Our family of animals? Jane?

  ‘Why on earth would Nigel be calling?’

  ‘I don’t know, darling,’ said Alan calmly. ‘Why not call him back and find out?’

  I swear, sometimes I want other people to get into a swivet along with me, whether justified or not. I glared at Alan and punched the right buttons to return the call.

  ‘Hi, Dorothy, stop worrying,’ said a cheerful voice.

  ‘How did you know I was worrying? What is there to worry about?’

  ‘Nothing, and I knew because I know you. I just came across something I thought would interest you. Jane told me you’ve got yourselves mixed up in another murder.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, and we’re not sure it even was murder – but you’ve got the right general idea. We’re embroiled in something distinctly unpleasant, at any rate.’

  ‘Concerning an American clergyman named William Abercrombie.’

  ‘Yes. But what—’

  ‘I’m coming to that. After Jane told me the story, I started surfing.’

  Nigel is the sort of computer guru to whom one turns when no one else can figure out what’s wrong with the blasted thing. He works in IT services at Sherebury University, and if there’s something he can’t do on a computer, it can’t be done. It’s a good thing he’s honest; he’d make the world’s most formidable hacker.