A Season for Murder

by Ann Granger

  ‘And I brought a tin of biscuits for the children, I didn’t know what else . . . Alan told me how old they were but I’m a bit vague about kids, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Absolutely marvellous. They’ll love them. I’ve got you a present but I have to find it – and yours, Alan. Just a sec.’

  She vanished again. There was still a bulge in the bottom of Meredith’s plastic bag. She gave him a hunted look and began to burrow in its depths to extract what was obviously going to be his present. Markby summoned courage and delved in his own sack. They came up together, clasping their offerings.

  ‘It’s a Christmas cactus,’ he said, getting in first.

  ‘So’s this one, mine – I mean – my present for you.’

  ‘I see. Well, um . . .’

  Solemnly they exchanged cactus plants.

  ‘I’ve always wanted one of these,’ said Meredith.

  ‘So have I.’

  They smiled uncertainly at one another and he wondered whether he could kiss her, just on the cheek in a Christmas sort of way. In front of all the kids no one would be misled into thinking it romantic. He drew breath and leaned forward and he thought she actually knew what he meant to do and wasn’t going to object.

  Then Vicky tugged at his pullover. ‘Dolly’s head come off.’

  After that, things looked up a bit. Paul’s dinner was excellent. Matthew ran out of percussion caps for the tank. Emma played ‘Jingle Bells’ on the recorder quite nicely, or perhaps a mixture of wine and the brandy sauce mellowed the ear. They all sat down in front of the television to listen to the Queen’s Speech, feeling at peace with one another and the world. Dolly’s limbs lay strewn about the carpet but Dolly’s assailant had gone to take a nap and slept. Baby Emily had arrived but sat peaceably chewing the head of a blue rubber rabbit. The two older children were playing some board game and arguing in a fairly friendly manner.

  That was when the telephone rang. Laura hauled herself up from the sofa and went to answer it.

  ‘It will be for me . . .’ said Markby resignedly. ‘I’m on call.’

  Laura appeared in the doorway. ‘It’s Tom Fearon at the livery stables for you, Alan. He sounds pretty cross.’

  ‘So am I, pretty cross. He’d better have a good reason for ringing me up on Christmas Day! Excuse me, everyone . . .’

  ‘Bad luck,’ said Meredith with sincerity, having suffered similar inconveniences in the course of consular duty.

  Markby snatched up the telephone receiver lying on the table in the hall. ‘Tom? Happy Christmas!’ he growled down it.

  ‘Not so bloody happy here!’ retorted Tom’s furious voice at the other end. ‘Some joker got in here last night. Let all the damn horses out – I’ve spent all morning going round the lanes rounding the brutes up again!’

  ‘Bad luck. Sure someone didn’t forget to close a gate?’

  ‘Come off it. This time of year they’re all stabled at night and with a good lock on the door. Especially after that rash of rustling last year – you remember? I tell all the owners who keep animals here to get them freeze-branded. The slaughter houses are chary of taking freeze-branded animals. They check them out first and the thieves know it and generally leave branded animals alone. So it wasn’t rustlers. It was downright malicious! Someone smashed the lock with a tool of some kind and let the horses out deliberately. They must have chased them out of the yard and made sure they took off in all directions. I found two of them in some old dear’s garden at Cherton! And I know who did it! Those blasted hunt saboteurs!’

  ‘Tom,’ Markby said, carefully controlling his voice. ‘Whilst I appreciate the trouble it’s caused you, you could have reported it to Bamford station and not rung me up, you know. As for whether it was hunt saboteurs or home-going Christmas drunks, the station will make all possible enquiries. But it’s hardly CID . . .’

  ‘There’s a letter, too, shoved through my door. Threatening God knows what. If I could get my hand on the dirty little tyke who wrote it—’

  ‘It was signed?’ Markby interrupted sharply.

  ‘Like hell it was! Of course it wasn’t. The writer didn’t have the guts to put a name to it! Look here Alan, I’m ringing you because I want your personal assurance that the local nick will have people on hand tomorrow in the Market Square when the meet assembles.’

  ‘You’ve kept the letter, I hope?’

  ‘Yes. Listen! I know disturbing you on Christmas Day is a bind but it’s more than that for me! And I’ve got to go now. I promised to spend Christmas Day with – with someone. I had to ring up and explain about chasing horses and that I’d be late. It didn’t go down well. Christmas dinner ruined and so on – she’s hopping mad. So I must get over there now. I want someone in the square tomorrow, Alan!’

  ‘I’ll see what can be done,’ he promised. ‘Though it’s not my department. I’m fairly sure that there will be someone on duty there as a matter of course but I’ll check.’ He hung up. Blast Tom and blast all his nags. To perdition with the Bamford Hunt and every one of its hounds. Good job Tom had got all the horses in, though. There could have been a serious road accident with a dozen or so frightened animals careering about country lanes. The irresponsibility of the people in question! Then he gave a little smile. Tom Fearon, an odd moody person at times, nevertheless had a considerable reputation as a lady’s man. The morning’s adventure had apparently left him in hot water with the lady of the moment. Tom would have to turn on all the charm to talk her round but if rumour were true, his success rate was high.

  Markby went back to the living room where the Queen’s Speech was finished, Matthew and Emma were watching a film and Emily had been sick. She was cleaned up and the four adults sat round the table and played Scrabble. Then Paul produced mince pies and in due course there was ham salad and Christmas cake. But the earlier glow Markby had gained in the church had been dispersed by Tom’s call. Something had gone wrong with this Christmas and whatever it was, it affected him. But he didn’t know what it was, that was the trouble. Just a feeling. A feeling of something unpleasant, waiting. And real, very real.

  ‘You’re a bit quiet,’ said Meredith as he drove her back to Rose Cottage that evening. He’d been quiet since the phone call. She hoped it hadn’t been anything serious but if it wasn’t then he ought not to have brooded over it for the rest of the day. She was annoyed, slightly, and she knew her remark sounded a little resentful.

  ‘Sorry!’ he apologised. ‘It was just something on my mind.’

  ‘Indigestion?’ she enquired crisply.

  ‘Don’t let Paul hear you suggest such a thing! No, not indigestion.’

  ‘Didn’t think so. He is a good cook, isn’t he? Wish I was as good. Was it the phone call?’ she added after a moment, more sympathetically.

  ‘In a way.’ He drove on for a few minutes, the headlights cleaving a way through the darkness. ‘Drat it,’ he said after a bit.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I looked forward to this Christmas, knowing you’d be here. Did you enjoy today?’ Hope entered his voice.

  Meredith’s resentment was replaced by a warming sense of friendliness. It was nice to think he had looked forward to her company. Also that he thought highly enough of her to want to present her to his family. Her earlier haverings now struck her as selfish. She’d been so obsessed with viewing today’s arrangements from her own position. He’d taken her to church, he’d taken her to lunch and she hadn’t been particularly gracious about any of it. She hoped she hadn’t let him down in any way. ‘Yes, I did enjoy it!’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Thanks. Laura gave me a box of some very nice soap. That was kind of her.’

  ‘She’s a good sort. I’m glad you enjoyed it.’ He cheered up visibly.

  They turned off the B road at the junction and drove down the narrow track to the cottages. Outside Harriet’s the big car was parked again. Meredith couldn’t see it properly in the absence of proper streetlights and wondered if it was Tom Fearon’s Mercedes. The other
night she had fancied the car which drew away was a Granada. Beside her, however, Alan seemed suddenly to have sunk back into grim-faced absorption.

  ‘Is it still the phone call?’ she asked gently.

  ‘Yes, in a way,’ he confessed. ‘Tom’s a good fellow, if unpredictable and inclined not to give a damn for anyone else. Ringing me up on Christmas Day, I ask you! But that’s Tom for you. I’ve known him most of my life, since we were boys. His family was by way of being a bit notorious locally. I don’t mean in a bad way, just different. Other kids called Tom a gipsy, but only when they were out of his reach! There’s certainly gipsy blood there but it’s way back. Sometimes though it has a way of surfacing.’ Markby smiled. Tom always had a couple of lurcher dogs tagging along at his heels when he was a kid. He was always one for the girls and as soon as he was a bit older, instead of the dogs he always seemed to have besotted females hanging round him. I think he treated the dogs better than he treated the women, actually—’ Markby broke off embarrassed. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. But I do think Tom’s animals have always meant more to him than people. Last night someone let all the horses out of his livery stable so you can imagine the state he was in when he rang.’

  ‘What?’ she shouted, jumping in her seat.

  He stared at her in astonishment. ‘Yes, stupid trick.’

  ‘You’ve no idea!’ Meredith caught her breath. ‘I haven’t gone bananas. It’s just that last night . . .’ She explained about the moonlit vision of the rearing horse. ‘And it was a real one, after all! I knew it was in my heart. Well, seventy-five per cent of me knew it was real and the rest of me, well, silly though it sounds, I almost believed in the horsy hobgoblins.’

  ‘I don’t blame you for getting jittery. Christmas Eve and so on. Spooky. Tom had to go racing round all morning rounding them up again. Luckily none of them was hurt and none caused any accidents.’

  ‘Accidents . . .’ Meredith said ruefully. ‘I should have rung the police and reported a horse on the loose on a public highway in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Doubt anyone would have found it – them – before daylight. We don’t know about damage. I understand a couple got into a garden. Tom’s a chap with a temper on a short fuse anyway. Bet the air was blue. It led to an upset with a girlfriend, too, I gather. It all made him late for her Christmas lunch. He was just going off to make amends. Hope that didn’t end with Tom slinging the turkey out of the window!’

  He didn’t mention it to Meredith but he was more worried about the anonymous letter in fact. Preventing a repeat of the episode letting the horses loose meant tighter security at the stables and Tom could, if necessary, hire himself a private security guard. The letter though . . . anonymous letters had a habit of turning very nasty. Only one so far – or this was the first he had heard of, but the affair could snowball and sometimes this kind of thing took an unforeseen twist.

  He realised he was in danger of appearing rude and dragged his attention back to present matters. ‘You wouldn’t, I suppose, like to go and see the Bamford Hunt meet in the Market Square tomorrow morning, would you?’ he asked. ‘The Boxing Day Meet is a tradition, and worth seeing. I won’t pretend there isn’t an element of duty in it. Tom wants someone on hand but I don’t want to ask for extra men on Boxing Day in case of trouble which might well not happen. There will already be a couple of chaps in a patrol car down a side street as a matter of course. And if I’m there myself . . . just as an observer, you understand. But you might like to see it. Provided it doesn’t rain, of course.’

  ‘Yes, I’d like to see it. Harriet suggested I go along.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up then.’

  ‘Can’t I drive myself in and meet you somewhere – in the square?’

  ‘Fair enough. They foregather about eleven.’ He smiled awkwardly. ‘Well, I look forward to it. Goodnight, then.

  ‘Goodnight and thanks. It was a nice day. See you in the morning.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He was going to kiss me at his sister’s, Meredith thought. When he handed over his present. He would have done if that kid hadn’t interfered. She wondered if he would now? It didn’t look like it. She was relieved but paradoxically slightly annoyed, too. She opened the car door determinedly and got out. ‘See you tomorrow!’

  ‘I’ll wait here and see you safely inside. In case of any more mischievous pookas around!’ He grinned at her.

  ‘Don’t make me feel sillier than I already do.’ She walked quickly up to the front door, opened it, turned and waved. He couldn’t turn in the narrow road here because of the car parked opposite. He drove a little way further on and turned using the grass verge after the last cottage. She waved again as he drove past towards the junction, and went indoors.

  She was restless, still feeling she had made a bit of a fool of herself. She boiled some milk for a cup of cocoa, resolving to steer clear of the brandy and hot milk: all that talk of pookas in the car had made her sound neurotic! Meredith took the cocoa upstairs by the hall light and into the bedroom without putting on the lightswitch there. In the half-light shining in from the hallway, she went to the dormer window to pull the curtains and found herself looking out directly at Harriet’s cottage opposite. Someone was in Harriet’s bedroom. Two people. They were outlined clearly against the blinds, locked in an embrace so abandoned that it was obvious neither suffered from the hang-ups she and Alan did.

  Meredith, with a surge of embarrassment, jerked her curtains across cutting off the sight. She undressed and got into bed and sat up with her cocoa mug, sipping at it. She supposed most normal people in a situation like the one she and Alan had been in all day, would have ended up in bed together, here in this comfortable bed at Rose Cottage. Perhaps he’d even hoped so, poor chap. And had he been almost anyone else, that’s how the day might have ended because anyone else wouldn’t have mattered. It would just have been having a good time. But with Alan there was the dreadful yawning pit of caring in the way. It was the sort of pit once set for tigers, with stakes on the floor on which you got impaled if ever you fell in. And she was never going to get impaled on those stakes again.

  ‘I’m never going to let him matter!’ she muttered. ‘I’m better off on my own and that’s how I’m going to stay! He’s better off on his own, too, and he knows it. Nature’s singletons, that’s us.’

  Outside a car engine revved up and purred away into the night. Harriet Needham wasn’t one of Nature’s singletons. ‘Wonder who the bloke is?’ thought Meredith sleepily, pulling the duvet up round her ears. ‘Wonder if it was the same one as the other day? Looked like the same car . . . Tom’s Mercedes? Not sure. Couldn’t really make it out. None of my business . . . Wish I hadn’t messed up every relationship I ever had.’ And then, quite suddenly and unwished, the thought: ‘Wish I hadn’t come back.’

  Four

  Boxing Day morning was grey and overcast but the rain promised to hold off at least until the evening. Good news for the Bamford Meet, thought Meredith, scooping her boiled egg out of the pan. It might be chilly, though, standing about in the Market Square and she had put on a thick pullover. She had overslept which was not surprising given the amount of rich food and drink consumed the previous day at the Danbys so it was as well the meet did not assemble until elevenish. She glanced at her wristwatch. Twenty past ten. Time enough, just.

  She arrived in Bamford a little after eleven and parked in the almost empty car park to the rear of the supermarket. It seemed desolate now. Inside appeared a dark labyrinth of ravaged shelves behind plate glass still festooned with the posters advertising special Christmas bargains.

  She put her hands in her pockets and briskly walked the short distance to the square. It was already full. The riders, about a dozen so far, had gathered together in the middle. The horses all looked spruced up for the occasion with plaited manes, even the two disgruntled piebald ponies on which perched two identical solemn-faced small girls. The crowd was about fifty in number and stood about chatting and wa
tching the riders. In and out of their feet and the horses’ hooves scurried the hounds in cheerful disorder. Occasionally one would disappear in the direction of the High Street, casting about for an interesting sniff, hoping perhaps to discover a fox in the vicinity of the cut-price chemist. The kennelman, a small dour wiry figure, would bawl orders after it and when it came loping back within reach, seize it and drag it, claws scraping on the flagstones, back to rejoin the main pack. It would then escape again, almost at once. One such came lolloping up to Meredith, a silly grin on its face. It was distinctly smelly, kennel-kept as opposed to a household pet dog.

  She heard her name called and saw Alan Markby in his green weatherproof on the far side of the square beckoning to her. He was standing beside a burly man in a duffel coat whom he introduced to her as ‘Jack Pringle, a local doctor.’

  ‘Hullo, Miss Mitchell,’ Pringle said. ‘You’ve taken Peter Russell’s cottage out at Pook’s Common, I understand. We used to be in the same practice, Peter and I. Now he’s doing his stuff under the desert sun. Nice little cottage that, but Pook’s Common is really the back of beyond. Far too cut-off to suit me. You don’t mind the isolation?’

  ‘Not really,’ Meredith said, shaking a hand like a shovel which was extended towards her. ‘I think I’m going to like it there. And of course, after New Year I shall be commuting up to London every day.’

  Pringle grimaced sympathetically and nodding towards the riders, asked, ‘What do you think of our local hunt?’

  ‘Not quite as I imagined. More relaxed and informal.’

  ‘We ain’t the Quorn, you know. Bamford Hunt just about keeps going, nearly broke. Costs a fortune to feed all those hounds and keeping a horse isn’t cheap these days. I used to follow a bit but I had to give it up. Mind you, I think they’ve had a bit of luck lately with a couple of wealthy chaps coming to live in the area and showing signs of interest.’