Eleven Pipers Piping

by C. C. Benison

  “Nick Stanhope was in here earlier with those property developer blokes.”

  “Interesting conversational transition.”

  “Is it?”

  “Okay, then how do you know they’re developers?”

  “Seen them before, haven’t I. They’ve been sniffing around Thornford for years.” Eric picked up the bar towel and began absently wiping at the ring of moisture Tom’s glass had left. “Belinda says they always look like they’re measuring the village for curtains.”

  “Roger mentioned overhearing a couple of men in his shop speculating about turning Thorn Court into housing.”

  “That’s probably them, then. Moorgate Properties.”

  “Will was very much against any new development. And Caroline would never bend to a scheme to sell Thorn Court and see it torn down. She’s enormously sentimental about the place.”

  “But Nick isn’t, is he?”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. This boozer is the very nerve centre of the village.”

  “I thought the post office was the nerve centre.”

  “Depends on your sex—or gender, as I was corrected by my wife not long ago. This is the blokes’ nerve centre. Look.” Eric lowered his voice. “My sources—”

  “Your sources?”

  “All right, my great flapping ears have picked up that Nick has a little gambling problem. Owes a bob or two to some shady characters in Torquay.”

  Tom regarded the publican with interest. The conversation overheard between Caroline and Nick earlier in the week flitted through his mind. Look, Caro, I need some bloody money and I need it soon, do you understand? It’s a matter of life and death! Caroline had dismissed her brother’s melodrama, and so had Tom, really. But then Màiri had hinted that something not quite kosher about Nick had the power to scupper her chances of being accepted for training to be a full police officer.

  “Put it this way,” Eric continued. “With Will out of the picture, Nick benefits. Most of the business folk in the village know that Nick loaned money out of his inheritance for his sister and Will to buy Thorn Court. Either he gets paid back out of the insurance money—there has to be insurance money—or he bullies Caroline into selling the hotel to someone like Moorgate Properties.”

  “I don’t think Caroline is easily bullied.” Tom’s eyes wandered over at the chalkboard on the wall by the bar with its list of lunch specials, then wandered back. “And I somehow can’t imagine—”

  “Nick doing the deed?” Eric smiled. “That’s what I said to Belinda. Something womanish about poisoning someone, I said, and she tore a strip off me for that.”

  “You’re not the only one to make that observation.”

  “Somehow I imagine Nick with a shotgun.”

  “Hardly subtle. You’d have to be at least a bit subtle to take someone’s life and make it either look like an accident or appear so confusing that the court throws up its hands in despair.”

  “Nick’s hardly subtle, from what I’ve seen.”

  “Unless desperation drives you to subtlety. What an odd idea,” Tom reflected. “Usually desperation drives folk to some blunt action.”

  “Are you ordering something to eat?”

  Jerked from his thoughts, Tom’s mind went to the vicarage refrigerator, crammed with victuals, some of them still left over from Christmas.

  “Your Madrun not on the job this dinner hour, then?” Eric ran a towel over a glass and placed it on an overhead rack.

  “She’s gone to town—Torquay, I think. Something about needing new clothes for her holiday in Tenerife.” Tom caught the flash of amusement light up Eric’s blue eyes and understood its source.

  Eric shot him a semi-apologetic grin. “Coppers might not be best pleased if she leaves the country.”

  “Mrs. P has no argument with the Moirs,” Tom protested. “She was devastated when I told her about the taxine.”

  “But the Stanhopes used to swank about this village in days past, they say. Who knows if they didn’t run roughshod over the Prowses?”

  “Now you’re talking nonsense.” Tom noted the twinkle in Eric’s eye.

  “I thought that might wind you up.” Eric stroked his goatee. “But seriously, Tom, those two coppers are going to have to come up with something for their lords and masters. Prove they’re on the job and all. By the way, your houseguest was here taking her lunch.”

  “Oh, yes?” Tom regarded Eric blankly, then shrugged. “Well, what with Mrs. Prowse being in town …”

  “She was having a good long natter with Old Bob.”

  “Really?” Tom realised, too late, that his voice held too much curiosity.

  Eric responded predictably: “Something going on?”

  “Not really,” Tom retreated. “Mrs. Ingley is, I suppose, just reconnecting with old friends in the village.”

  “She’s been with you awhile. After three days—well, you know, fish and relatives begin to …”

  “She’s neither fish nor relative. Anyway, she’s been no trouble. Keeps to herself to a certain extent. I think her plan is to leave early next week. She wants to attend tomorrow’s Wassail and she’s having a meal or something with John Copeland on Sunday. I’m not sure if she intends to buy the Tidy Dolly or not, though.”

  “Funny not paying a visit for fifty years. Stafford’s not so far. You’d think you’d come and put a few blooms on your parents’ grave once in a while, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, I suppose.” Tom gave a passing thought to the last time he’d put flowers on Lisbeth’s grave.

  “Actually,” Eric continued, “you’d think if you arrived after fifty years, you’d get to your parents’ grave in short order.”

  “You wouldn’t have seen it for the snow a few days ago, Eric.”

  “Anyway, she’s doing her duty this afternoon.”

  Tom raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  “She said. We had brief chat when she blew in. Got a holly wreath and all. By the way, she’s won no favour with one person in the village—your houseguest, I mean. Though Nick doesn’t live in Thornford, does he? God knows he’s been here a lot lately—”

  “Eric …?”

  “Sorry. Any road, when Mrs. Ingley left, Nick jumped up from his meeting with those two Moorgate blokes and chased after her. I could see him out the window giving her a right rollicking. Couldn’t hear anything, though.”

  “Was there some provocation?”

  Eric shrugged. “She didn’t look bothered. I thought to go out and take Nick by the scruff, but it appeared Judith was giving as good as she got.”

  Tom frowned. “Did the police witness this?”

  “They’d only popped in for a swift half. They were gone before either Nick or Mrs. Ingley arrived. Now, are you noshing or not? Steak and kidney pie is on special—Belinda’s mother’s recipe, as it happens.”

  Tom felt his stomach growl at the mention, but the ale had fueled another desire. “Sounds delicious,” he said, raising his glass high to drain it, “but I have something I need to attend to.”

  Crossing St. Nicholas’s chilled nave from the north porch, Tom glanced up at the memorial window erected in the south aisle in memory of Rupert Stanhope, Caroline and Nick’s great-grandfather, who had perished in 1916 in the Battle of the Somme, a young man leaving his child bride and baby boy, Arthur, to manage the family holdings. The window, glowing faintly in the winter light, depicted a rich man dispensing alms, a pious and, Tom wondered, perhaps deceptive choice of subject, the attitude in which the rich liked to see themselves rendered. Perhaps the Stanhopes had been a font of charity in the village (he would have to find out), but perhaps the Great War and its sacrifices had altered the family as it had transformed society, hardened it to new realities. Arthur—Caroline and Nick’s grandfather—grew up to reshape the private idyll of Thorn Court into a commercial enterprise. He spawned Clive Stanhope, who probably deserved the epithet black sheep, but somehow evaded scrutiny. Tom thought, too, of those who ha
d laboured for them, thought about the bitterness of servants of times past, their helpless rage, in the days of deference to one’s presumed betters.

  He pushed open the heavy oak south door and felt the icy air brush his cheeks. The churchyard was bathed in the pale metallic light of a midwinter afternoon. He could see past the bare branches of the copper beeches to the still-frozen millpond and past that to a stark tracery of denuded trees on the far side, punctuated by dark green conifers rising like sentinels into a wavering wreath of mist. Except for rooks cawing, all was calm, the graveyard empty of life but for a small, still figure, wrapped in pink, near the bottom of the southeast terrace, a little distance from the rag stone wall, edged by sloping drifts of snow, that marked the boundary with the vicarage garden. Tom hesitated on the stoop, composing himself for the interview ahead, then stepped onto the pea shingle path.

  “I hope I’m not intruding,” he murmured to Judith when he reached her side.

  “Not at all.” She glanced at him sharply with her shrewd button eyes and returned her attention to the gravestone, touched here and there with green lichen, rising like a spectral shaft from a patch of snow. “You’ve come at a good time.”

  Tom noted the holly wreath, still in her hands, waiting to be set against the marker. Unprompted, he stooped and scraped away the snow from the base of the marker, feeling the bitter cold sear his uncovered hands.

  “Thank you,” Judith said.

  “Shall we have a prayer?”

  Judith nodded and set the wreath down on the mottling of dead black leaves as Tom said a short prayer for the souls of William George Frost and Irene Lynne Frost. After a minute, he stole a glance at Judith, hoping to adjudicate her mood. But in profile, her expression yielded little. The curve of her mouth was set in a contemplative frown; her eyes remained dry, though her cheeks were reddened, whether by icy air or emotion, it was impossible to tell.

  “Your mother died very young,” he remarked, glancing at the date carved into the stone, bare weeks after victory had been declared in Europe.

  He thought he knew how and wasn’t surprised when Judith said, “She died in childbirth—mine, as it happened.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “A home birth,” she continued. “Unfortunately, the midwife was otherwise occupied.”

  “With what?”

  “Another birth in the village—at Thorn Court, as it happened. By coincidence, Clive—Caroline’s father—was born the same day, the same hour—”

  “Good heavens! And resources being stretched in wartime, of course.”

  “I’m not sure they were stretched, as such, Tom.” Judith’s frown deepened. “I think a rich man’s wife simply commanded attention in a way that wouldn’t be acceptable today.”

  Tom drew in a breath of icy air. He had no balm for this tragedy or for the injustice behind it.

  “How did you know I was here?” Judith asked, turning to him abruptly.

  “Eric mentioned it. The landlord at the pub. He said you’d been lunching with Old Bob.”

  “That doesn’t explain—”

  “He also said he thought Nick Stanhope had been abusive with you. He happened to witness the two of you out the pub window. I thought I would come to see you were all right.”

  “I’m fine. I managed a care home for many years. When you have patients with various forms of dementia, you get quite used to abusive talk. Nick Stanhope’s threats are nothing to me.”

  “Threats?” Tom felt a chill that wasn’t airborne. “Judith, are you certain?”

  She studied him a moment with her assessing eyes and again abruptly changed the subject. “Madrun tells me you’re adopted—or twice adopted, in some fashion.”

  “Yes,” Tom replied, startled, reluctant to let go his concerns. “Twice adopted, twice blessed.” He couldn’t help smiling at the adage, one belonging to the Reverend Canon Christopher Holdsworth, rector of St. George’s in Gravesend, where he grew up. “My adoptive mother, my first adoptive mother, was a singer named Mary Caroll who died—”

  “Yes, I remembered the name after Madrun mentioned it. A plane crash out of Stockholm, right after winning the Eurovision Song Contest. I’m sorry.”

  “I was a baby. I have no memory. I only have pictures.”

  “And you don’t know who your natural parents were?”

  “No. My adoptive father’s sister took me in, I guess you could say. She and her partner raised me.”

  “And you were never curious about your birth parents?”

  “No, that wouldn’t be true. There were moments of great curiosity, particularly when I was a teenager, and if I was in some sort of scrape with Dosh or Kate—my parents—I would think, Well, I’ll bloody go find my real parents! But on the whole, I had a happy childhood. I was raised by two lovely, loving women.” He smiled at Judith. “They made me the man I am. I’ve often felt I would be hurting them somehow, by seeking out my birth parents.”

  “I see.”

  “The only time I gave it serious consideration was after I married and we were planning a child. I wondered if there might be some genetic time bomb ticking away in the background, but … well, my wife said, let’s be glad for what God gives us and not worry.” Tom glanced up at the dull sky, his attention drawn by a circling rook. “Lisbeth would have risen to it, if there had been an extraordinary challenge. Fortunately, Miranda is a challenging child in her own way, as children are.”

  “You must miss your wife.”

  “Terribly. Very much.” The words always sounded so banal. “I miss being married,” he added. “But you lost your husband only a few months ago.”

  “Yes, but he wasn’t cut down in his prime as was … Sorry, Vicar, I didn’t mean to be so blunt. Trevor was ten years older than I, and for the last twelve years he suffered terribly from Parkinson’s. I feel I lost him years ago. His end was a mercy, really.”

  “But you have a son.”

  “Yes, I have a son.” Judith glanced again at her parents’ gravestone. “I’ve been thinking about nature and nurture, you see. That’s why I asked you about your parents—your many parents. You say your adoptive mothers made you the man you are, but are you sure? You seem to me a man of compassion and good humour—mightn’t those be legacies of your birth mother or father, just like the colour of your hair or the shape of your eyes?”

  “Well, of course, I can’t know for certain, but I think if nature and nurture were running the course at Cheltenham, I’d more likely put my money on nurture. It’s the optimist’s view, I suppose.” He wrapped his own scarf tighter. “I have a sense you disagree.”

  “When I was younger I would have been inclined to your views, but I’m not so sure now. Watching families when they visited the care home, I could see the same … traits on display, from grandparent to grandchild, like little mirrors reflecting one another.”

  “Mightn’t that be nurture as much as nature?”

  “Possibly.”

  “John Copeland, whom you met, is adopted. So was Will, I understand. I wonder if they are reflections of their natural parents or their adoptive parents?”

  “I wonder.” Judith twisted her mouth in thought. “A better example might be Nick Stanhope. He’s aggressive, inconsiderate, belligerent, probably reckless, perhaps conscienceless, but”—her eyes crinkled as she smiled up at him—“I’m not so past it that I can’t see he wouldn’t be attractive to women—young women.”

  Tom grunted, thinking of Màiri White and her comparable musings. “Nature or nurture?”

  “He’s very much like his father was.”

  “You knew Clive Stanhope well enough, I presume.”

  “My father and I lived over the old stables, now the garage, if you recall me saying.” She glanced at her parents’ gravestone. “And of course we were the same age—almost to the hour. Clive was likewise brash and self-involved and yet, I must say, attractive. Does Nick, then, come to his essential qualities by nature or by nurture?” She turned her attenti
on back to him, regarding him candidly. “He is the son of a murderer, after all.”

  Tom was silent.

  “You do know this,” Judith persisted, peering at him. “Of course you do. I can see it in your eyes. Bob Cogger told you when you took him to town the other day.”

  “Old Bob?”

  “He wasn’t old fifty years ago. He has a last name,” she added dryly.

  “Did you know in those days how your father—”

  Judith cut him off sharply. “I certainly suspected something. My father was meticulous, careful, cautious. He wouldn’t take risks—not when he was the only parent to me. He would have assured himself that ladder was secure on Thorn Court’s roof when he went up the tower. It’s impossible that it was an accident!”

  “And you didn’t voice your doubts?”

  “No.” Her expression was stony. “The shock at first, I suppose. Then … it’s all a blur now. I was barely eighteen. Arthur Stanhope was my father’s employer. My family had worked for the Stanhopes for several generations. Arthur was an intimidating presence. I’m sure he had a quiet word with the local constabulary. There must have been an inquest, but I don’t recall. ‘Accident’ or ‘misadventure’ was the probable ruling. It would have taken Bob to come forward and say what he had seen, but he …”

  “Was persuaded otherwise.”

  “I don’t blame him. He was almost in tears at the pub earlier talking about this, and I do know his prognosis. Chronic renal failure. It’s not good.” She absently brushed at a bit of lichen on the gravestone. “Anyway, Bob wasn’t the only one. I had applied to take up nursing on school-leaving, which my father would have been hard-pressed to afford, but Mr. Stanhope—Arthur—offered to pay for my training. I wanted desperately to get away and make a new life anyway, so … in the end, Arthur Stanhope bought my silence, too, didn’t he? Although I suppose I didn’t recognise it as such at the time.”

  Tom studied her a moment, trying to imagine the young, frightened girl who was now this elderly, self-assured woman. “What led you to think Clive Stanhope was responsible for your father’s death?”

  “His shadow,” she intoned.

  “Shadow?”