The Village Fate

by William Hadley

  “Let’s sit in the garden, it’s a fabulous day and the patio’s a sun trap.”

  They walked though the hallway and kitchen with its large centre island and every conceivable gadget. Angus had once asked Maggie why she needed to have so many labour-saving devices, after all she very rarely cooked. …No wonder he’s sleeping in the spare room. From the kitchen they entered a conservatory which spanned the back of the house. The bi-fold doors were pushed back and they stepped onto the patio which surrounded a glistening pool. Claudilia couldn’t help feeling just a tiny bit jealous.

  Maggie noticed her guest taking in the surroundings. Claudilia may have the rolling acres, the horses and the ancestry, but Maggie had the pool, the gym and the body. Combine it with Angus’s money and she had one over the heavy weight president of the local pony club.

  “Drink?” asked Maggie. “I have nothing but water in the afternoons. Plus I’ve just finished a cardio session in the gym, so it’s important I keep myself hydrated. Still or sparkling?” She crossed to the bar near the Bar-b-que and opened a small fridge, Maggie didn’t wait for an answer, she just filled two glasses with sparkling water, slices of lemon and cubes of ice.

  Claudilia lowered herself onto the most sturdy patio chair she could see. She gazed over the pool, across the sloping lawn and manicured hedge to the fields. Her fields, filled with grazing ewes and lambs. “You get a great view of the sheep from here,” she said.

  “Yes, but they can be so noisy. Some nights you can’t have the windows open. And when they take the poor little things away from their mums they cry for days.”

  Maggie sat on a patio chair and stretched out her long smooth, and perfectly tanned legs, she crossed her ankles and perched them on the side of a low table. Claudilia noticed the red painted toenails, the colour matched the nails on her fingers. She couldn’t remember when she’d last painted her toenails, let alone shaved her legs. From time to time she dragged a razor under her arms if she was wearing a tee shirt, but if she ever bought a bikini she’d need to crack out the strimmer!

  “How much time do you spend in the gym Maggie?” Claudilia asked.

  “Hours darling, hours and hours, you don’t get a body like this by sitting around eating buns and drinking beer.”

  “Two of my favourite past times,” said Claudilia.

  “Yes well, let’s be honest sweetie, you don’t have my athletic shape, do you?”

  “I keep fit. I ride every day and I swim in the river, I can hack and hunt all day if I need to.”

  “Yes” said Maggie “I suppose we both turn heads - just for different reasons.” …I don’t know about heads, but she’s turning my stomach.

  “Angus tells me you have a brother in New York, he’s an artist or something?”

  Maggie looked worried, wondering what else Claudilia had been told. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of Trevor, but she preferred to drop him and his sexuality into conversations at a time of her choosing. A bit like a sophisticated hand grenade she thought, look at me, I’m so cultured, I have a gay brother who works in the arts. He lives in Greenwich Village, that’s in New York - or the Big Apple as we call it.

  She regained her composure and smiled. “Yes, Trevor’s a theatre director off Broadway. He’s been offered lots of shows on Broadway of course, but he always turns them down. He says they are too formulaic; they have to be a hit you see, get bums on seat, that sort of thing. Trevor wants to be at the cutting edge of drama, where he can be creative and let the actors express themselves, that’s why he is “off” Broadway. Maggie emphasised this, with her fingers making bunny ears. Claudilia wanted to shoot the bunny.

  “Do you see much of him? It’s a long way to go for a visit.”

  “Well, I do “hop over the pond” from time to time” … there’s the stupid bunny ears again! “I was looking at air fares when you arrived.” Maggie gestured to the table where Claudilia noticed an iPad she’d not seen earlier. “I was thinking of taking a trip in the next week or two. I’ve been trying to get Angus to come with me, but he’s far too busy. He has a very important job you know.” Maggie sighed. “So I guess I will just have to go without him.” Then she smiled and added. “I’ll just console myself with a bit of retail therapy.”

  “Come and have a look at the gym and exercise room,” said Maggie, folding herself out of her chair in a single fluid movement. “It’s where Tish wants to run the W.I. classes and I think there’ll be plenty of room. It used to be a terrible old barn, gnarly wooden beams, God knows how many cobwebs and the roof, Christ it was awful, full of horrid little bats and shit. I’ve cleared them all out of course, breathed new life into the place and made it suitable for the twenty-first century. We’re tucked around the back of the house so nobody can see what I’ve done with the place, and anyway who’s going to miss one more listed building?”

  Claudilia was appalled. “You can’t disturb bats; they’re protected and it’s a criminal offence.” They had several ancient barns around the estate. Although they were expensive to maintain they gave the place its special character.

  Inside the gym Maggie said to Claudilia. “We’ll move the equipment against the walls so there’s more space in the middle and everyone will have a good view of themselves in the mirror.”

  “I’m not sure that all of our ladies will want to see how they look,” said Claudilia.

  “Nonsense, they’ll need to concentrate on position and posture,” Maggie giggled. “Sometimes ‘Tish makes me exercise naked; she says it helps if I can see the muscle groups working.”

  “Christ, she’s not expecting the W.I. to pump iron in the buff is she?” gasped Claudilia.

  “Good God no,” snapped out Maggie. “To tell the truth, I think she’s a little bit bi. Maybe she gets a thrill from seeing me all naked and sweaty.”

  “So long as our ladies can remain appropriately covered that’ll be fine. They wouldn’t appreciate being lusted over.”

  Maggie looked at her guest for a heartbeat too long. “It’s okay Claudilia, you of all people don’t need to worry about that.”

  They went around the room and Maggie demonstrated what each piece of equipment was for. There were a lot of chrome bars attached to wires, pulleys and weights. Maggie explained how each one did something slightly different. They helped to isolate various muscle groups and made sure that she exercised them all. There were bars to push and bars to pull, short handles to lift up and long handles to haul down. The large rubber ball was for Maggie to stretch her back across, and not to be played with in the pool, and the big soft matt was not for “a little lie down”, as Claudilia had assumed, but for sit ups and crunches. …whatever they were.

  “You’ve got lots of weights on racks too,” said Claudilia.

  “Yes, they’re called free weights, but believe me darling, they’re far from free. The price was as hefty as the weights them self.” Maggie had made a joke, Claudilia missed it.

  “What do you use them for?”

  “Well, when you’re an advanced trainer, like me,” said Maggie with a smile the wrong side of condescending, “you can use them for bench presses or curling.”

  “Oh, I know about curling, it’s a sport the Scottish are rather good at. Didn’t they get a medal at the winter Olympics a few years ago. It’s sort of like bowling on ice.” Claudilia said. The sarcasm in her voice was missed by Maggie. She’d picked up a small shiny weight that looked like a dog bone.

  “No, it’s this,” she said raising and lowering a weight by her side. “It’s important to use just the bicep muscle and control the down movement as well as the up. And you mustn’t swing the weight or go too fast.”

  “How many ladies will you and Tish have in a class?” Asked Claudilia.

  “We could have as many as ten in here for a basic class of stretching and strength, but if there’s more we can split them by age and ability.”

  “I’d have thought that ten’s all you’ll get from the W.I., and they’re all about our age or ol
der.”

  Maggie smiled. “Your age and older perhaps, but not mine.”

  The two ladies looked at each other. Maggie still smiling and waiting for Claudilia to concur. Claudilia smiled back and said nothing …I know you’re closer to fifty than forty, and what you need is a bit less Botox and a bit more beef, then you’d look like a real woman, not a silicon stick insect. For a long moment there was an awkward silence.

  Maggie broke the spell. She moved to a bench with a metal bar across one end held up by a stand at either side. She positioned herself under the bar, and with a grunt, she lifted it from the supports. With slow and precise movements she lowered the bar towards her body, then pushed it back up to its starting position. “Can you just stand by my head dearie; in case I can’t push it back up and need a little help. This can get heavy after a few reps.”

  Claudilia knew what “reps” were. They’re people who come to the office and try to sell you stuff, normally after taking you out for a pub lunch. She couldn’t see a pub lunch appearing anywhere in the immediate future, but she walked over and stood by Maggie who was lowering the bar again. Each time it went down she breathed in, each time she pushed it up she gave a hearty grunt and counted. As the number went up her face became more flushed, by seven she was quite red, by ten she’d slowed down, gone scarlet, and struggled to put the bar on it’s stand.

  “We could have more than one class,” said Maggie as she wiped her face with a towel. “I’m sure Tish would love to do a group for the youngsters too. It’s so important that girls learn the benefits of exercise, core strength and deportment.”

  “What do you have in mind,” asked Claudilia.

  “Well take your niece, Helen’s a pretty girl with a great figure, but she needs to learn to walk in heels. I’ve never seen her in anything but flat shoes or riding boots. How’s she ever going to show herself off if she can’t walk in heels.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to wear them,” said Claudilia, not comfortable with the direction the conversation was taking.

  “Well of course she does. If she’s going to attract the right man, one with pots of money, she’ll need to look great all of the time; and not look like she’s making an effort to do it.”

  “I think she’s quite happy as she is thank you,” replied Claudilia in a clipped, I’m-about-to-lose-my-temper, tone which she hoped Maggie would recognise and change the subject.

  Maggie lay down and lifted the bar from its stand. As she lowered the weight she carried on talking, “Yes, she looked very happy in church this morning, and I think it’s the first time I’ve seen young Emma at Sunday worship.” The bar came up. She held it for a moment and then started another slow, controlled decent. Maggie breathed in. “They seem very close don’t you think. I wonder just how close they really are?” She exhaled with a loud grunt and pushed the bar back up. “Maybe they’d like some one-on-one classes with Tish and me.” The bar was now stationary at the top. Maggie’s arms shook with the effort of holding it still. “Yes. I’m sure Tish would agree to some private lessons, she loves working with young flexible bodies. Helen and Emma would be perfect for her. She’d get a massive thrill out of watching them, all hot sweaty and young. I’d bet she’d join them in the sauna. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself.”

  The bar went down again and reached its lowest point, stopping just above Maggie’s chest. But before the prone woman could start to push it back up Claudilia leaned forward and placed her hands inside of Maggie’s grip, just wider than the woman’s head. Using her weight she pulled the bar towards her and began to press down, Maggie was no match for the bigger lady, and the weight rolled up her chest stopping above her shoulders. It was heavy across her throat.

  Claudilia looked down into the woman’s terrified face. The weight on the bar was too much for Maggie to move, she kicked out as she felt her windpipe being squeezed. The blood in her head was pounding and darkness raced in from all sides. Maggie felt sick. “Stop it, stop it, you’re hurting me.” She managed in a croaky voice.

  Claudilia eased just a little weight off the bar, and Maggie sucked in a single rasping breath. It was agony, but the air tasted glorious, cool and sweet. Her reprieve was short lived, the weight came back on. This time harder, more forceful. More fatal.

  “You’ll never get your filthy, perverted hands on Helen,” said Claudilia, pushing down with all of her weight. “You, your slutty friend and your shag happy gardener, you can all go to hell,” her entire mass now supported by just the bar across Maggie’s neck. The cold steel and chrome crushed hard down on the woman’s throat. Claudilia was using Maggie’s beloved gym equipment to cut off the air to her lungs and the blood to her brain. “And you’re leading the way Maggie Macintosh, you’re leading the way right now.” Claudilia started to bounce, her feet came off the floor, all her weight was forced down through her arms.

  Maggie let go of the bar, she thrashed about with her hands. If she could just hit Claudilia’s head she might push the larger woman off, but there was little strength in her blows and each was delivered with less force than the one before. Her legs too were kicking out, bare feet slapped the floor in a horrific parody of River Dance. Claudilia leaned in, now just inches from Maggie’s purple and terrified face. The eyes were bulging, big and bloodshot with burst veins all around the pupils. Blood and snot were dribbling from her nose, and she’d bitten through her tongue. Flecks of blood splattered Maggie’s cheeks and chin.

  “Oh dear, your makeup’s smudged.” were the last words Maggie Macintosh heard as she sank into darkness and her body lay still.

  Chapter Forty

  Claudilia stood in that position for a full three minutes. Breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth she let her heart rate return to normal and her adrenalin level subside. What she needed now was clear thinking. She had a body to dispose of, and she needed to remove any evidence that she’d been to the manor.

  She returned to the patio area and finished the glass of water she’d been drinking. She washed up her glass and the one used by Maggie, dried them both and replaced them in the cupboard. Next, she went to the table and gave it a wipe over with a cloth from the bar. She walked through the house, wiping anything she may have touched earlier, door knobs, banister rails, the kitchen island. She went out through the front door, dropping the latch to lock it. Next she collected her bicycle and walked it around the path, through the side gate and onto the patio. Hidden from unexpected visitors she felt a little less exposed, and there was no way she’d open the door if the bell was rung.

  Claudilia took Maggie’s iPad and slipped it into the basket on the front of her bike, …Mrs Muck never went anywhere without that, and went back into the kitchen. Using a cloth to mask any finger prints she hunted through the cupboards, under the sink she found what she was looking for, Marigold washing up gloves, pink of course. Next she went into the utility room, where she forced her feet into a pair of the late Mrs Macintosh’s trainers, she didn’t want to leave her own size eight boot prints around the house.

  Handbag. No lady leaves home without her handbag. Claudilia searched the hall and downstairs rooms until she found it on a chair beside a desk. It was a medium sized handbag, not like Claudilia’s which was almost a rucksack. Inside she found a purse which held some cards and a little cash. Maggie’s phone was kept safe inside a small zip up pocket.

  There was a laptop computer on the desk but no sign of a laptop. Touching the keyboard brought the computer to life. Claudilia could see that Maggie had been looking at available flights to New York, everything first class of course, and scheduled for the next few days – how convenient. Claudilia went through the draws of the desk and found a small leather pouch which held Maggie’s passport. That was dropped into her handbag along with a few hundred dollars, they must have been left over from her last visit.

  Claudilia took the handbag, the cash and the passport upstairs to the bedrooms. The first door she opened was a boy’s bedroom. This must be Angus j
unior’s she thought. The second was the family bathroom, spotless with not even a toothbrush on show. The next was a guest room. The fourth was the master suite. At the end of the corridor was another bedroom was obviously one for a girl, this must be Holly’s room. She had her own bathroom, which is very important for a young lady, and a walk in wardrobe that appeared to have been taken over by Maggie. Claudilia couldn’t imagine Angus’s daughter wearing half the items hanging on the rails, but with girls these days you never know.

  The final room was another double, and this was the one used by Angus. Clothes lay across the back of a chair inside the door, there was a novel on the nightstand and a chest of draws with framed photos of Holly and Angus junior on top. Claudilia opened the wardrobe and allowed herself a moment. She breathed in his scent, it felt as if he was in the room with her.

  Claudilia went back to the master suite, an emperor size bed with three sets of pillows dominated the room. She wondered how Mrs Muck could complain about Angus being in it with her, he must have been six feet away, almost in another post code. It was obvious that Maggie slept on the left hand side of the bed, as did Claudilia herself. That night stand had a few knick-knacks on it, while the right hand table was clear of everything but a lamp.

  Claudilia went along the side of the bed, she knelt down and took a closer look at the items on the night stand. A framed photograph of a younger Maggie, with a boy who was so like her that could only be her brother. Beside that stood a second picture, one of an older couple, Claudilia assumed these were their parents. Beside the pictures was a small book with flowers on the cover, Claudilia flicked through the leaves, it was just notes, phone numbers and shopping lists filled the pages. A book like this sat on her own nightstand, but hers had a picture of a horse on the front and was filled with crop notes and dates the farrier would visit Pumpkin.