by D J O'Leary
On the Friday evening he had a quick chat with Bert in the Snitcher’s Head, and they agreed it would be a good idea for the two of them to pop down to the local agricultural engineers the following morning to start looking at mowers and rollers. Bert added that he had found a carpenter and a painter – both retired – who could help out for a very modest sum in each case, so that was the sight screens sorted.
They duly met up, with Bert driving on what was a very frosty Saturday morning, and there was good news at the engineers. Not only did they know of a privately owned Allen ride-on cylinder mower for sale, but it was in good condition, and although expensive, was not extortionately priced. The engineers said they would give it a thorough service, promising to repair where they could, otherwise they would replace, any parts that needed replacing. Finding a suitable roller was not quite so straightforward, but the engineers had some useful advice: contact councils and sports clubs to see if they had one they wanted to part with, or failing that, approach plant hire companies to see if they would be happy to sell on an older roller that was suitable for the cricket club’s needs. All in all, Tolstoy felt rather pleased with the way things were developing, and on returning to the village, where Bert dropped him off at the pub, he treated himself to a quick and early pint of Fuggles.The only shadow to be cast on his day was in the form of Jack Bentley, at that moment the bar’s solitary customer – other than the ever-present Old Ned, but that was a given as far as Tolstoy was concerned.
Nick Marten, the landlord, drew the pint. Tolstoy paid, then took a lengthy sip. Common courtesy demanded that he acknowledge the presence of one of his least favourite people, however. ‘Morning, Jack.’
‘Morning, Warren,’ came the response.
‘I was hoping to see you in here,’ Tolstoy lied. ‘When you present your find to the council members at next Thursday’s meeting I wondered if I and a few other members of the Buttercup Field’s action committee would be allowed to speak?’
‘As long as it’s not some sort of protest thing, with chanting when cabinet members are speaking. But what would you want to say, anyway?’
‘Look at it as a courtesy. Since, as you rightly say, this discovery of the documents is almost certainly going to affect the village materially, then it would be only right and proper to give everyone, as well as the councillors, the opportunity to comment on the matter.’
‘I suppose you have a point. OK, I’ll make it clear at the start of the meeting that after the councillors have all had their say, that we will throw it open to the floor to give the villagers a chance to have their say, but they mustn’t ramble on for too long.’
‘Just make that clear to everyone when you lay down your ground rules,’ said Tolstoy. ‘Good, that’s settled then. Cheers.’ With that he drained his pint, dabbed his handkerchief over his upper lip to remove a moustache of froth that lingered there, then headed for the door.Having established the right to speak he needed to see the colonel and Angela. And fairly promptly. The previous evening the colonel had promised to do a ring around of the rest of the committee to apprise them of the discovery of the documents at Stottenden Manor and to ensure that as many as could turned up at the meeting in the village hall on Wednesday. And with luck, thought Tolstoy, the colonel had completed the task by now. It was quite a haul up the driveway to the colonel’s impressive farmhouse. In fact, Tolstoy thought, farmhouse did not really cover it. It dwarfed Stottenden Manor, and he felt that stately home was nearer the mark. To his knowledge it had about a dozen bedrooms, endless reception rooms, a magnificent billiard room, imposing library, not to mention an enormous, and impressively well-stocked, wine cellar. And of course, there were outbuildings, a cottage or two and a couple of enormous barns as well as an unconverted oast-house. All in all, quite a property, more estate than farm.
Tolstoy was puffing a little by the time he arrived at the top of the drive, which at that point swept grandly around to the right to pass the front door and end in a generous parking area. In fact, the drive did not end there; there was a pair of wide farm gates which allowed the colonel access to the farmyard, which lay to the rear of the house, and, some four hundred yards distant, skirting the stunning formal gardens on which the colonel’s wife lavished much love and attention.
Tolstoy climbed the five stone steps that were flanked by a stone balustrade, then approached the front door. Another outsized element, it had to be close on nine feet high. There was a rather modest bell-pull, on which Tolstoy tugged. He could hear nothing chiming, the door looked too thick to allow anything, let alone the sound of a doorbell, to pass through it, but about half a minute later it swung open and Miriam’s smiling face appeared around it. ‘Warren, what a lovely surprise. Do come in. Are you here to see Andrew?’
‘Only for a couple of minutes. I’m sure he’s rather busy.’
They moved across the generous hall, on one wall of which a large log fire blazed, and Miriam ushered Tolstoy into what she described as “the morning room”, a beautifully-appointed, stunningly-proportioned room lined with bookshelves that were taller than Tolstoy. The shelves were lined with paperbacks, a couple of reference books and an impressive, if somewhat dated, collection of compact discs, things that had long since been rendered obsolete by technology.
‘I’m afraid he’s busy,’ explained Miriam. ‘Frightfully so. They had to cancel the shoot this morning after a really gory discovery. Harry Stoke got a call from Brian Marlow, our neighbour. He made a shocking discovery, that left even Harry looking a bit queasy.’
‘What was it?’
‘Well it sounds frightfully melodramatic, but Harry said that in this particular field, that runs alongside the public byway, were the heads and entrails of, I think he said, three of Brian’s steers that were being readied for the Christmas market. Brian wondered if Harry or anyone who works on the shoot had heard or seen anything on the nightly patrols, and also if they had heard of any other farmer in this area having suffered the same thing. It is just perfectly frightful.’
‘And has any other farmer suffered a similar crime?’
‘We don’t know, but Harry has promised to ask around, or “put out feelers”, as he described it.’
‘So these steers were slaughtered in the field, then? Is that what Harry thinks?’
‘It seems to be the only logical explanation.’
‘Well, it does sound awful. And poor Brian Marlow. No farmer can afford that kind of loss, I am sure, because I presume the steers would have been worth a fair amount to him, given the time of year.’
‘Absolutely. It really is a horrid thing to have happened, and to such a nice man. So anyway, Andrew has been on the phone for the last hour or so, ringing around anyone and everyone who might have heard of a similar thing being carried out in another part of the county or the country. He says he thinks he saw a story in The Times or The Telegraph recently which reported a similar incident, but he can’t remember where it happened, or when. Anyway, I’ll just pop along to his study and let him know you’re here.’
‘Thanks, Miriam,’ and Tolstoy began a tour of the bookshelves, intrigued to see what tickled the colonel’s fancy on the reading front. To his surprise they were a mixed bag: lots of thrillers, but also books by food writers such as Elizabeth David, collections of recipes, some fairly old-looking volumes on what looked like fly fishing, as well as a number of larger format books on wine, champagne, claret, Burgundy and German wines being the dominant topics. But there were also a number of titles covering wines from Italy, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, North America and Canada. Tolstoy was impressed, and pulled out one on Bordeaux by Edmund Penning-Rowsell, a classic of its kind, and authoritative.
He began to read, and as ever, when he was reading, he was somehow able to shut out the world and become completely absorbed in the book, which was why he failed to hear the colonel entering the room.
‘Ah, afternoon, Tol
stoy.’
The reader looked up with a start. ‘Andrew. Afternoon. Um,’ he indicated the book on Bordeaux, ‘I hope you don’t mind me helping myself to a book. After what I inherited from Hubert I have become interested in wine, and I know next to nothing about claret, or any wine when it comes down to it.’
‘You’ve no need to apologise. You’re welcome to borrow it, although I would want it back. And when you’ve finished that one you can pick one on a different wine region, and gradually work your way through my modest collection. Now, I know you didn’t come here to browse through my wine library, so what can I do for you?’
‘I’ve just been having a chat with Jack Bentley and he has said that we’ll be able to speak at the meeting. I didn’t mention our set of documents, but I did say one or two of us might want to comment on Jack’s announcement. I thought you ought to know, so that you can prepare yourself, and I’ll now pop down to see Angela Smeaton so that she can also do some preparation. Obviously, there’s not a lot we can do until we have the documents, but Kate has assured me that she should be getting them back either Tuesday or Wednesday. And I’ll ring you the moment we have them.’
‘Excellent news. Especially about being able to speak. Jack and the councillors will obviously be expecting to hear us objecting to their documents, when in fact we shall be producing the ones you found, plus certification of their authenticity.’
‘Yes. But I don’t think we are going to be the only ones speaking at the meeting. Bert Bryson gave me a heads-up in the pub, saying we should definitely be at the meeting, and he promised fireworks. I have no idea what’s going on, but evidently something is going to happen. I hope it’s not some sort of revelation about Jack’s documents, which will be incontrovertible proof of his claims.’
‘It all seems rather intriguing,’ said the colonel. ‘Now I’m afraid I have to go back to the phone. Miriam said she told you all about Brian’s grisly discovery early this morning.’
‘Yes. It sounds dreadful. It’s not something I’ve ever heard or read about before.’
‘I thought I’d give Brian a hand and offered to do some research to see if there have been similar incidents, and it turns out that this is not the first time this has happened. Apparently, there have been three other cases of on-the-spot slaughtering in the past fortnight. One was in East Sussex, the other two in Hampshire. In one of the Hampshire cases they killed six beasts. Oh and there was one incident that was reported a long time ago now, again in East Sussex, somewhere near Uckfield. I feel sorry for Brian. He works so hard. This must be quite a financial blow. So anyway, Tolstoy, I have to meet up with Brian shortly, but thanks for letting me know about speaking at the meeting, and if I don’t see you before, then I shall see you there. It’s a six-thirty start, I believe, in the village hall.’
By now they had moved into the hall and the colonel reached for the front door and hauled it open.
‘Thanks, Andrew, and I shall take care of this,’ Tolstoy indicated the book that he had tucked under his right arm. ‘Thursday, if not before, bye.’ And with that he set off down the drive and back to the road. The Smeatons lived in a detached Edwardian house along Back Lane, which ran behind the village shop and the pub. Tolstoy was feeling a trifle excited, and perhaps a little apprehensive. He was also anxious about the documents. He dearly wanted to have them in his possession now, not Tuesday or Wednesday. And he wanted them to be the real thing. What if they weren’t? The real thing, that is. That was too awful to contemplate. He would feel humiliated. And he would have let down the whole village. He had felt a sense of responsibility from the moment he had moved into Stottenden Manor. It was almost proprietorial, not that he owned any part of the village beyond the Manor’s grounds. Yet he had the cricket field, and that was a focal point for everyone. It held a place in their lives. And he desperately wanted the Buttercup Field issue to be resolved.
He walked up Back Lane then turned into the Smeatons’ driveway. Not quite as grand as the colonel’s, but there was still enough room for a modest sweep. He rang the bell and moments later Angela opened the door. ‘Tolstoy!’ she exclaimed. ‘What a surprise! Come in.’
‘I’d better not,’ he replied. ‘I’m running a little late and Elspeth is sorting out lunch for me. I just wanted to tell you that I met Jack Bentley a little earlier and he has said we can all speak at the meeting. I wanted to let you know so that you get a little preparation time.’
‘Very good. Thank you, Tolstoy. Obviously, the sooner we have the documents back in our hands the better, though.’
‘Yes, I do appreciate that. Kate reckoned Tuesday or Wednesday. I just hope it’s the former. Right, I’m off. Oh, by the way, the meeting starts at six-thirty.’
‘Thank you for letting me know. See you then.’
‘Yes. Bye.’
As far as Tolstoy was concerned, the rest of the weekend just dragged by. With no Kate he couldn’t even seek reassurance about the documents and their return. In the end, he immersed himself in the book on claret and let the weekend slide by at its own speed. He didn’t even bother with a Sunday visit to the Snitcher’s Head. He got his ration of exercise and fresh air by strolling around the cricket ground and the gardens of Stottenden Manor.
Monday found him edgy. Ever more apprehensive. The morning passed slowly. The afternoon, if anything, was even worse. That there was still no call from Kate left him worried. What if she and her forensic friend had miscalculated how long the process would take? He was tucking into crumpets and tea with Elspeth, late in the afternoon, when the phone rang. Elspeth stood and went over to the table where the phone lay. Tolstoy watched and waited, barely breathing, then he heard, ‘Oh, hello Kate. How are you?’ (a pause) ‘Yes, he’s here. Do you want to speak with him?’ (another pause) ‘Right, I’ll hand you over. Tolstoy? It’s Kate, for you.’
It was all he could do not to snatch the phone from Elspeth. But having managed to contain his impatience he greeted Kate. ‘Hello. What news?’
‘Wayne has completed the authentication of the documents and will be bringing them to Tunbridge Wells tomorrow. So I shall come to the Manor at about nine-thirty, if that’s all right, and pick you up.’
‘Yes. That’s great. But what about the documents? Are they genuine?’
‘Yes, they are. Isn’t it wonderful?’
‘Oh, that is the best news I’ve had in a long time. So we can now go to the council meeting on Thursday and end this whole sorry saga. What time is Wayne arriving tomorrow?’
‘About eleven o’clock, or shortly after. We’ll have time for some breakfast at a nice little place in the Pantiles, then it’s a five-minute walk up to the station, where we’ll be able to collect the documents from Wayne. Now, I’m sorry about this, but I have to go. I’m still at the shop and we have to close, then sort out the tills and everything. But I’ll see you tomorrow morning, nine-thirty. Bye.’
‘Bye, Kate, and thanks. See you in the morning.’
He hung up and placed the handset on the coffee table. ‘That was Kate,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘We’re meeting Wayne tomorrow in Tunbridge Wells, when we’ll collect the documents. Kate’s calling here to pick me up and we’re going to have breakfast before meeting him at the station. But Kate says the documents are genuine. It’s really great news. Now I can’t wait for the council meeting.’
‘Oh Tolstoy, that’s wonderful,’ said Elspeth, moving over to him and giving him a hug. ‘It has made all those cobwebs and dust in the cellar well worth it. Are you going to ring Andrew to let him know?’
‘Yes. And I’ll also ring Angela Smeaton. She’ll need to prepare her arguments. Oh, this is fantastic news!’
Tolstoy sat back, teacup in hand, somewhat dazed, but very happy, and he felt relief wash over him. Then excitement. He was thrilled. This should see off Jack Bentley and the council once and for all. And he and Kate were to have breakfast together tomorrow. And they
would share the moment of collecting the documents. Double delight, he thought. Double delight.
When Kate called for him the following morning, Tolstoy was ready. He had to restrain himself from practically sprinting out of the Manor, forcing himself to turn around and check that he had closed the heavy oak front door, before walking briskly over to the car and letting himself in.
‘Morning, Kate. Sleep well?’
‘Morning, Tolstoy. Yes. You?’
‘Like a hibernating bear. I now feel fully rested.’
‘Weren’t you a little excited about meeting Wayne today and picking up the documents?’ Her tone was one of disappointment.
‘Well, I knew the documents were genuine, because you told me on the phone yesterday evening. My only worry now is looking after them until the meeting, and beyond.’
They had left the Manor by then and were headed down the hill towards the main road. Kate glanced at him briefly, then back to the road ahead before saying, ‘Yes. It’s rather fun, isn’t it? And I think you’ll enjoy the breakfast, too. I often eat there first thing, sometimes even before I’ve opened the shop, although more usually once I have organised whoever is there to help me on that day.’
They had reached the junction and Tolstoy leaned back to give Kate a better view of the main road to the left, and decided not to say anything less it interfere with Kate’s concentration. He had to admire the confident way she handled the car, and wondered if he would ever be as good. In fact, he wondered if he would even be able to pass his test.
‘I think breakfast is my favourite meal of the day,’ Tolstoy announced, once he felt it was safe enough, and that he wasn’t going to distract Kate with his conversation. ‘I do enjoy a cooked breakfast, although I make that a treat usually on a Sunday.’
