The Village Fate

by William Hadley

  “Not at all. You were fine while we were walking back from the party and then they went off to their rooms. It was the second bottle that got you, but still not a word out of place. A few out of shape perhaps,” he smiled. “But none out of place.”

  Angus got up and headed for the door. “I’m going to feed the dogs and put on some clothes, you haven’t forgotten we’re going rowing today have you?”

  Claudilia groaned and disappeared back under the duvet.

  “Breakfast in thirty minutes,” he said from the landing. “A greasy fry up’s what you need, but first juice, coffee and a bath. I’ll send your clothes up when they arrive.”

  Claudilia drank the juice and most of the coffee. She was lying in the bath and beginning to feel human when she heard a knock on the door and footsteps in the bedroom. Thinking it was Angus, Claudilia gave a small shriek and dived beneath the bubbles.

  “It’s only me,” called Helen. She put the bag of clothes on the bed and walked into the spacious bathroom. “This is rather nice.” She said taking in her surroundings, the long mirror on one wall, the roll top bath on four cast iron feet, the rack of fluffy towels and the spare dressing gown. “You don’t hang around aunt, do you? His wife’s been gone less than a week.”

  “Shut up.” She groaned. “It wasn’t like that. We came back to Bindweed Cottage and I could hear you and Emma were awake.”

  “We weren’t being loud were we?”

  “No, but I didn’t want to disturb you, so I collected the dogs and walked back here with Angus and the kids. I’d intended having just one drink, but we got chatting and I didn’t feel like walking home. Angus offered me the spare room.”

  “You didn’t try to walk on water then?” said Helen. “I heard you nearly fell in the swimming pool.”

  “Oh that’s an exaggeration. I just missed my footing a bit, my legs had gone to sleep and I got up too fast.”

  “Holly said her Dad had to carry you up the stairs, though I’d like to see him try,” laughed Helen.

  “So would I.” said Claudilia with more lust in her voice than she’d intended.

  Helen left and Claudilia reached for a towel. After the bath she felt more human and was ready for some breakfast. She dressed in the clothes Helen had brought and put her party things in the bag. She was ready for food now, and quite looking forward to a day with Angus on the river.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  After breakfast they left the kids to tidy up and get on with their schoolwork. Angus, Hamish and Max accompanied Claudilia back to Bindweed Cottage, they found Helen and Emma drinking coffee in the kitchen. They asked the girls to keep an eye on the dogs and to leave the TV on if they went out. Claudilia put together a picnic from things she found in the fridge before they walked along the path to the boathouse.

  Claudilia fussed around with ropes and the electric motor before lowering Puff into the water. Angus had a rummaged through a box of fishing tackle. “There’s some nice stuff in here Claudilia. Do you go fishing often?”

  “No, but sometimes I like to tow a hook along when I row. Sometimes I get lucky.”

  “Shall we take a couple of rods with us today?” Angus asked.

  “We could do, there’s a few trout in the main river and we might catch our supper.” Claudilia was aware she was using “we” and “our” all the time. She wondered if Angus had noticed.

  Angus chose two short rods which wouldn’t get in the way of rowing. One already had a reel attached, the other was bare so he went hunting through another box and found a nice looking reel wrapped up in a paper parcel. He fitted it to the rod and turned his mind to bait.

  “What do you do about bait?” he called to Claudilia.

  “There’s a cool box in the room at the back, it’s solar powered. You should find some vacuum packed maggots in there.”

  Angus checked the back room and sure enough there was a bag of small white rice looking creatures inside a neat little cool box. He added it to the bag of fishing bits and took it all out to the boat.

  Puff was only thirteen feet long, but that was fine for two people. Claudilia told Angus to sit in the stern and she would sit in the middle and row … he can row when it’s his boat. They had to push her out of the slings and then paddle backwards through the door of the boatshed, once clear of the building Claudilia could get the oars out. When the little boat was mid-stream she started to row, she was an experienced oarswoman and soon fell into a rhythm of long comfortable strokes.

  Angus was fascinated. He’d seen the river from the bank as a walker, from horseback and from the top of the distant hills. Now he was at water level on a boat. He got a new impression from each vantage point, and every time the river looked different.

  “Who’s GW?” asked Angus.

  “What? Who’s GW who?” replied Claudilia bending forward and taking another stroke with the oars.

  “It says GW on the side of this reel, and CV34 5UQ. I reckon that’s a post code.”

  “I don’t know,” said Claudilia, but inside her head she was thinking fast. Shit, shit and double shit, I should have scratched that off. …Too bloody right you should have. Okay got it, that’ll work. “I bought it on Ebay, I just saw it when I was wandering around and liked the look of the thing. It’s a fly fishing reel and I fancied it for twenty five quid. Yes, I think that’s what I paid. GW must have been the chap who sold it.

  “That’s very cheap, it’s a Greys GX700, it’s a good reel, a very good reel and worth about double that I’d say.”

  “Well then I got a bargain.”

  After half an hour or so the river widened and joined the Avon. It seemed as good a place as any to stop for their lunch and Claudilia rowed them towards a group of trees with branches overhanging the water. She tied the painter…that’s the short piece of rope at the front of a boat, to a low branch and put away the oars.

  They baited their lines and dropped them over the side.

  “What are we likely to catch here?” asked Angus.

  “With luck we might get some chub or a couple of roach.” Replied Claudilia who was still thinking about the reel.

  “Nothing that’s likely to be our supper then?”

  “Not really, there are a few trout down here on the main river, and it’s the sport I do it for, not to feed myself but it gives me an excuse to stop rowing.”

  “I guess that’s as good a reason as any,” said Angus “We usually take a couple home when I go fishing with Dad in Scotland. He’s in his eighties but still likes fly fishing from time to time. I think he comes for the drinking afterwards as much as the actual fishing.” Angus smiled when he thought of his father. The old man was showing signs of dementia, but the stubborn old bugger wouldn’t do anything about it.

  “You’re close to your parents aren’t you?” said Claudilia.

  “Yes, I wish I could see more of them, but Edinburgh’s a long way and I don’t get there often. Maggie doesn’t like them; didn’t like them.” He corrected himself. “so I stopped taking her and the kids to visit. Perhaps I can go more often now.”

  “That would be nice, or maybe they could visit you, now that little obstacle is out of the way.”

  Claudilia opened her basket and started to unpack the lunch. There was half a cold pork pie, some spicy couscous and a quick salad she’d thrown together. She’d added a jar of pickles and some cheeses as well as a few slices of ham and cakes that didn’t sell at the fete. All in all, it was a hearty lunch and they washed it down with half a bottle of wine she’d had in the fridge.

  Angus settled down in the stern seat and took hold of his rod. So far there hadn’t been a single bite and he wanted to be the first to hook a fish. He reeled in his line and then, taking great care not to rock to boat, he flicked it firmly towards the underside of the trees. His line landed in the shadow of an overhanging willow, and in the hope that it would encourage the fish he tossed a handful of bait in the general direction of his line.

  Claudilia was sitting on
some cushions in the bow. It had been a busy week, and in truth she still felt a little hungover. The sun was warm, she was full of lunch and the gentle rocking motion of the boat made her drowsy, she was asleep in minutes.

  Angus took out his iPhone, opened the notes application, typed in the initials GW and copied the postcode from the side of the reel. He wasn’t sure why but he just wanted a record of it.

  For the next forty minutes Angus fished, pulled out the occasional chub and a couple of roach as Claudilia had said he might. She slept in the bow, and Angus enjoyed the sunshine on his back. He thought it was a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. He would never have done this with Maggie, she hated boats but worked out on a rowing machine. She refused to swim in the sea but did length after length of their pool. Each year she’d spend a fortune on bikinis, yet refused to go to a beach.

  When Angus looked at his watch he was shocked to see it was a week, almost to the minute since Maggie had died. He recalled the timestamp on the security camera. Seven days ago, right now. For a moment Angus was sad, not that she was out of his life but that she was dead, and it had happened in such an anonymous way. So long as he kept that video secret nobody would ever know what happened to Maggie Macintosh, and despite the heat of the sun a small chill ran through his body. Trevor would eventually accept that she was not on her way to New York and he’d begin to wonder where she was. He might even come to the UK looking for her, and what would Angus say to his brother-in-law. He’d always been upright and honest, as a banker he had needed to be. Angus’s father had told him that “it’s not what people see you doing that counts, it’s what you do when nobody’s looking that matters.” He wondered if he could live with the secret of his wife’s disappearance.

  And then there was Claudilia. She’d killed Maggie, of that there was no doubt. She had been present at, if not directly involved with, the demise of Tony the bee man. She had disposed of his wife in a very matter of fact way, and he wondered if she was developing a taste for it. She’d said he was safe; but just how safe and for how long?

  On the other side of the coin life was fun again. In the last week, he had been riding twice, been drunk at lunch time which hardly ever happened before, and he’d run the shooting stall at a village fete. He would never have done those things with Maggie around, not in a million years. His new best friend had a love of food, booze and good living. In other words all the things he used to enjoy; and he’d been forced to give them all up because they didn’t fit in with Maggie’s view of the world. Claudilia was easy going. She’d lent her house to her lesbian niece and then sat up drinking till the small hours, and not with just anyone, but with the husband of the woman she’d killed a few days earlier. Angus looked at her in the bow of the boat, she was sleeping like a baby. …you mean I wake up every three hours screaming for food and I wet myself?

  Of course he might be found guilty too. He wasn’t sure what the crime was called, but doctoring the CCTV before presenting it to the police as an accurate record would probably get him some jail time. He’d had ample opportunity to “come clean” but stayed quiet. Now he too was in it up to his neck, but couldn’t he enter a plea of diminished responsibility? He’d seen his wife screwing a handful of other men, and at least one woman in the sauna. Then he’d watched as she was choked to death and chopped into a fine paste, she’d looked like tomato puree coming out of that spout. No wonder he wasn’t thinking straight. He was sure a good lawyer would get him off.

  No, who was he trying to kid. He was as guilty as a puppy by a pile of poo, and if he was being honest he liked what his new life had to offer. Tomorrow he would go to Stratford and deposit the USB stick with the solicitor, then he’d buy some new clothes. He wanted his own riding hat, some decent boots, riding gloves and a pair of jodhpurs, maybe even a hacking jacket if he saw one he liked. He’d come back to Wimplebridge and spend an hour in the office. In the afternoon he’d go riding with Claudilia.

  Angus felt a bite and his concentration returned to fishing. He reeled in the line and landed a brown trout which wriggled in the bottom of the boat, slapping it’s tail against the hull.

  “My God, what’s all that noise” said Claudilia sitting up and wiping a bit of drool from her mouth.

  “Trout” said Angus.

  “Who’re you calling a trout?” she said, still half asleep.

  “No, I’ve caught a trout.”

  “Goodness. So you have.”

  “Shall we take it home for tea?”

  “One trout’s not going to go far, we’ll need two or three,” replied Claudilia. “Much better to pop it back in and let it breed.” Angus picked up the fish and removed the hook from its mouth. The scales were smooth to the touch and he just held it for a moment looking at the exquisite colours, transfixed by how they changed from its top to its belly. It was a beautiful fish. Then he leaned over the side and put his hand in the water. He opened his grip and the fish was gone, back under the trees amongst the shadows and low hanging branches.

  “Come on,” said Claudilia straightening herself up. “We need to get going, you’ve got to take those children back to school and I’ve got horses to feed.” They swapped places and Claudilia lowered the motor into the water. She flicked a switch and there was a very light humming noise. The boat crept forward. Angus was amazed at how quiet the device was. He thought outboards were loud smelly things that belched out blue smoke. Claudilia clicked the motor into neutral and he untied the rope from the branch. For a moment they drifted backwards, till they were clear of any obstacles. Only then did she put it back into drive. Claudilia increased the power and Puff surged forward, turning in a big arc and heading back up the river Wimpole. They glided along in near silence, the motor made no noise, it just hummed. They were traveling at a comfortable speed against the current while creating very little wake.

  “All this power comes from a twelve volt battery under the cross seat?” asked Angus.

  “That’s right” said Claudilia. “And it doesn’t disturb the wildlife at all.”

  In no time they’d arrived back at the boathouse. Claudilia stopped the motor and raised the propeller out of the water. They had to duck as Puff glided in, and came to rest above the strops which would lift her clear of the water.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Bindweed Cottage was quiet. Helen and Emma were gone and so were the dogs. Claudilia had expected to find her faithful Labrador on his chair in the lounge; or if he didn’t hear her coming she’d find him curled up on her bed. But no Max and no Hamish anywhere in the house? for a moment Claudilia was a bit concerned.

  “Where the hell are those girls? I leave them for a few hours and they disappear with the dogs,” she said to Angus.

  “What are you more worried about,” asked Angus. “The girls or the dogs?”

  “The dogs stupid,” she replied. “The girls can take care of themselves.”

  They took another look around the house and finally, on the kitchen table, found a note which made everything clear.

  Dear Aunt C.

  Emma, Max, Hamish and Me, have gone over to the Manor to see Angus

  (the other one, not the one with you), and Holly.

  Hope you don’t mind.

  Helen

  “Well that clears that up,” said Claudilia.

  “It clears up the case of the missing girls and the dogs,” said Angus. “But I think we should get back to the Manor before they reduce it to brick dust and ashes.”

  “They’ll be fine,” Claudilia reassured him. “The worst that can happen is a few dog hairs in your pool. Max loves to go swimming.”

  Angus groaned.

  “Now dinner, what are you doing about dinner?” said Claudilia.

  “God, I don’t know. I’ll take the kids back and then I guess I’ll pick up a sandwich on the way back or stop off at the pub.”

  “You can’t eat like that all the time, at best it’ll give you rough guts, at worst it’ll add ten pounds in a month.”
<
br />   “So, what do you suggest?” Angus replied.

  “I’ll bring a few bits up to the house and cook. I’ve got the makings of a steak and kidney pie in the fridge; we can eat when you get back from the school run,” she replied. “How’s eight thirty sound?”

  “Steak and kidney pie at eight thirty sounds great,” admitted Angus whose mouth was watering at the thought. “Normally there would be a runner bean quiche or hummus and chickpea soup for me to reheat.”

  “No runner beans and definitely no hummus.” Replied Claudilia. “and if I’m going to eat chickpeas, they’d better be animal feed first. Then they can be roasted as a chicken, fried as a steak or grilled in a chop.”

  “Amen to that,” mumbled Angus. “But are you sure, I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble and if I’m cooking for one I might as well cook for two.”

  So that was settled. Claudilia bustled around the kitchen for a few minutes while Angus sat at the table and watched. She put the makings of the steak and kidney pie in her handlebar basket along with another bottle of wine and together they pushed her bike through the village. They went over the bridge and up the lane to the Manor.

  In the garden the kids were having a wonderful time. Helen, Emma, Angus junior and Holly were splashing around in the pool. The dogs were barking their encouragement from the side. They were playing some sort of tag water polo. It involved Angus as the only boy, against the three girls who were working as a team. When the girls got the ball they had to try and score, or pass it to another girl. The goals were sun loungers that they had stood on their sides and if they could bounce it off the base, which was now the back, it was a point.