INKIER THAN THE SWORD
Falconer’s Progress
BY
ANDREA FRAZER
This book is dedicated to Anthony Ian Frazer, who has spent the last forty years guiding me through life and keeping me safe. Thank you so much, Tony.
Happy reading!
Inkier Than the Sword
by
Andrea Frazer
Copyright 2012 by Andrea Frazer
Smashwords Edition
These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Andrea Frazer.
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INTRODUCTION
CONCERNING GEOGRAPHY
Geographically, Steynham St Michael splits easily into four quarters, due to the crossroads consisting of the south to north Market Darley Road, and the east to west road, known simply as the High Street, as it runs through the village.
Its commercial buildings lie mainly along the two sides of the High Street but, after a short run of cottages running north on the eastern side of the Market Darley Road, resume again, with one of the two public houses standing on the western side. Slightly further north, Tuppeny Lane leads off to the right, with the fish and chip shop on the corner, then the Strict and Particular Baptist Church (unused now), the library (under funding-threat), a small area of waste ground and, finally, an infants’ and primary school, these days seen as a status symbol for any rural community.
To the south west of the High Street are some comparatively recent houses, these having been built when some of the insanitary and tumbledown former farm workers’ cottages were demolished. Some of the more sturdy older dwellings, Queen Victoria Terrace and Prince Albert Terrace are good examples of houses built in the nineteenth century, but with a conscience that their fabric should be sound and that the buildings should last.
In the south east corner of Steynham St Michael is Barleycorn Crescent, built round the edges of the green and occasional cricket pitch and resembling the half-circle of the lower case letter ‘b’ to the upright of the Market Darley Road, when viewed from above, or from a map. These houses are pure nineteen-thirties, and as out of place as the Victorian terraces, the only advantage to living in them perhaps being direct rear access to the Co-operative Store and the recycling bins.
Old Steynham St Michael is represented by its northern half, containing as it does, the church of St Michael and All Angels, the afore-mentioned Strict and Particular Chapel (a particular attraction in itself), the prettiest and most picturesque cottages, the older and more traditional of the two public houses, and some pretty lanes hiding yet more desirable residences.
Not an obvious tourist trap, and unlikely to become one, the residents and proprietors of commercial establishments get by as best as they can in this uncertain world, with its precarious local, national and global finances, and hope that the future has more to offer than today has.
PROLOGUE
DEMOGRAPHIC FOR A NEW YEAR
Friday 1st January, 2010
The first day of a new year sees few people in their places of work. In Steynham St Michael, however, there was more commercial activity than may have been guessed at.
Charles Rainbird of Mill Cottage, Dairy Lane and proprietor of Rainbird’s Renaissance (where beautiful things are given a new lease of life) was in his stock room at the rear of his establishment, which was situated at the meeting of the Market Darley Road and the High Street, putting it firmly in the bottom right hand corner of the north-west quarter of the village.
He was sitting in a disreputable old armchair which sprouted horsehair and other components of stuffing at every corner. His upper body was bent over, and right inside an old chest, from which he was steadily removing items and putting them on a table beside him. He had been to a couple of auctions between Christmas and New Year, and had bid for a number of job lots in the hope of finding those things which are overlooked by the general and ignorant public, but are bread and butter, and possibly even jam, to a struggling antiques’ dealer.
He had already had quite a few lucky finds, and the proceeds of his fossicking and ferreting in old boxes, crates and trunks were piling up, leading him to think that, with a bit of elbow-grease, he should have some profits to come from a future auction himself. There were some nice examples of brown furniture, discarded in the general turnout of such items, that would bring a hearty sum if waxed well (over a bit of judicious filling here and there) and catalogued properly, and he might even get old Potty Pounce to come and give him a hand. She wasn’t such a bad old stick, really, and she certainly knew how to work hard for her pittance.
Potty Pounce, the object of Charles’ thoughts, was in fact Mrs Hilda Pounce, widow of this parish, residing at number three Prince Albert Terrace, and ‘treasure’ of many a resident of the village, both present and past. On this newest day of the new year, she was dressing herself, ready for the low outside temperature, as she had been asked by both the Ox and Plough and the Fox and Hounds to lend a hand clearing up after the celebrations of the night before and, although this meant an early start for her so that the establishments could open again at lunchtime, she set out energetically.
A few extra quid always came in handy, and she needed all she could get to keep up with the rising prices of just about everything. Why, it was getting so that she could hardly afford to heat her cottage, and times hadn’t been that bad since she was a child and her father had been out of work; the winter of 1962/3 being a bad time to have a disagreement with your boss, and let your mouth run away with you. Ah, the old times, she thought. Not always good times, but always with you, and nothing would ever change them, no matter how hard you wanted to or tried.
Vernon Warlock, who ran the antiquarian and second-hand bookshop in the High Street, sat at his desk in Vine Cottage staring blindly out of his front window overlooking the market Darley Road and shook his white-haired head in despair, setting free a gentle snow-storm of dandruff, to alight gently on the shoulders of his clean but shabby claret-coloured cardigan. He would have to telephone that chap again and see what he could let him have. Times had never been so difficult, and sometimes he wondered if he shouldn’t just sell up and retire, with his beloved books, from commerce, as well as society. No doubt a benevolent and profligate government would look after him, as it seemed to everyone else.
In Farriers Lane at the cottage known as Chrysanthemums, Roma Kerr looked up from studying the accounts for the ladies’ fashions and haberdashery business that she ran with her husband, caught sight of said husband spilling black coffee as he coughed his morning cigarette into the ashtray, lost her temper and shouted. “Why don’t you go back to bed, you drunken, stinking lazy old soak? You’re no bloody use to me nor to anyone else! Get out of my sight before I do something drastic, like throw you out with the rubbish where you belong.”
Rodney Kerr put down his nearly empty coffee cup in the fireplace, threw his cigarette butt into the charcoal from the night before’s fire, and left the room, trailing an air of cigarette smoke and gloom, mingled with stale whisky. He had no idea why he behaved as he did, except for the fact that he could not see anything to look forward to. Everything before him appeared to be grey, and he didn’t see how him stopping drinking and smoking too much, was going to inject any colour into the future landscape. Roma could burble on all she liked about how they would revitalise the business and turn it around, but he didn’t see the point. The business was as dead as their future - as dead as their marriage - and nothing he could do could change that.
Immediately opposite said business in the High Street, Buffy Sinden slid open a wary eye, and peered at the pillow next to hers - empty. She might have known that anyone she met at a New Year’s Eve do at the Fox and Hounds was bound to be just another ‘leg-over’ merchant, lacking even the staying power to address breakfast. Oh well, never mind: more bacon for her then, and an extra sausage - the thought of which made her smile as she walked into the bathroom.
Her reflection in the bathroom mirror soon wiped the smug look from her face, as she surveyed what was before her. Eye-shadow, liner, mascara and lipstick were blurred across her features like old stage make-up. Her hair, bleached beyond conditioning, the ends split from daily back-combing, did not provide an edifying sight. She was thirty-five years old, divorced, had a very shady and chequered past, the details of which she hugged possessively in the dark side of her heart, and a job as a dental nurse in the practice on Market Darley Road.
Apart from these few and uninspiring facts, she did own her own home, Clematis Cottage, or as much of it as the building society allowed her to own while she was still in debt to them. She had a job, but not exactly a glamorous and exciting one, and she had a reputation as a good-time girl - the original good time that was ‘had’ by all. Even the postmen at the local sorting office were aware of her ‘social life’, and referred to her pretty little hideaway as Clitoris Cottage. It was time she pulled herself together, acted her age, and did something worthwhile with her life. Wasn’t it? Or could she really be arsed to make the effort?
Hermione Grayling pursed her over-lipsticked mouth, pulled her eyebrows together with a frown, picked a final full-stop with the index finger of her right hand, and leaned back with a sigh. That was certainly enough for today, she thought, gazing at the sheet of paper in her old-fashioned manual typewriter. It may be very early in the day, but she just wasn’t in the mood today. At the head of the page was the number ‘731’, and she realised that she was nearly at the end of another of her Victorian family sagas.
With a sigh of satisfaction, she used the fingers of both hands to fluff up the unruly curls of the wig she habitually wore since her hair had got a little thin, then stretched her plump arms up in a gesture of relaxation. She would telephone her old school friend Dimity Pryor who lived just down the road in the terrace of ancient cottages on the market Darley Road. They could take afternoon tea together.
That would be nice, and she could tell Dimity all about her ideas for her next nineteenth century Aga saga. Dimity was always such a help with the little details, and seemed to have such an enthusiastic interest in the development of the lives of the families in the books, that she sometimes sounded proprietorial - as if they were hers instead of Hermione’s - but not as proprietorial as Vernon Warlock from the bookshop.
He felt he had an absolute right to tell her what to do with her characters, book after book after book, and also what she should have done with them in those already published. Dear, infuriating old Vernon. She would invite him too.
They should all three of them have toast and caviar, and some of those fresh cream meringues which were so deliciously gooey in the middle, with a pot of Darjeeling. It would serve the interfering little darlings right, for being so special to her, and so dear to her heart. She’d get Hilda to pour it for them, from her dearest great-aunt’s silver tea service, and in her very best Rockingham china. Hermione believed in keeping nothing for best, but in using and enjoying things while you had them, instead of keeping them perfect for someone else, after you were dead.
In Pear Tree Cottage, next door to Dimity Pryor, Noah and Patience Buttery were considering their new year’s resolutions with earnest zeal. Both of them were descended from the villagers who had, for decades, attended the Strict and Particular Chapel, and they took such a task very seriously. Any attempt to change for the better was to be considered long and hard, and assessed on the chance of its success. If it were to be a case of wasted effort, they would be better looking for something different to make a difference in this world.
Their thirteen year old son had decided that he would donate ten per cent (like a tithe) of his paper round money to Christian Aid, but that had seemed enough of an effort to him, and he was now happily plugged in to his mixing decks, headphones wagging, lips flapping as, with eyes closed, he got down and dirty - metaphorically - with the beat.
At the corner of Tuppenny Lane in Forge Cottage, things were similarly as lively and as loud as they were in the Butterys’ son’s head. Amy and Malcolm Littlemore were at it again! Or rather, Amy Littlemore was drunk again (and so early in the day), which was not surprising, as Malcolm brought her her first couple of drinks of the day in bed, so that she could control her shakes enough to leave the bedroom and function, after a fashion. This being a Bank Holiday, she was a little ahead of her usual schedule, and had had more than usual at this time of the morning. Malcolm was trying to pacify her, or at least to turn her wrath upon something other than him, if he could not allay it. It was the mention of new stock that had set her off this time.
Malcolm had ordered a smattering of new lines to try to liven up their business. Amy had decided that, in her present mood, the shop was in dire straits and could afford not a penny on new stock, besides which, she personally had chosen their present lines, and why was it she who was always wrong, wrong, wrong?
Neatly ducking a surprisingly accurately lobbed heavy glass ashtray, Malcolm rose to the occasion with a soothing bottle in his hand and, holding it out before him as a peace offering, approached his now silent partner - if only she would remain so - and tentatively filled her glass. She rewarded him with a glowing smile on a face from which all vestige of malice and hatred had been expunged, and he knew she had forgotten, once more, what had set her off. If he was lucky, she’d be asleep in front of the box by the time the news came on, and he could have a quiet evening with just the gentle susurration of her snores to keep him company.
Tilly Gifford of Foxes Run, one of the terrace of old cottages on the Market Darley Road, did not wander downstairs until ten o’clock that morning, and would have stayed in bed longer if she could have ignored Tommy’s pig-like snores. She was halfway down the stairs when she saw the envelope lying on the door mat under the letterbox, and her brow furrowed in puzzlement. Today was a Bank Holiday and surely there was no post, so who had pushed a letter through her letterbox.
She could see it was a letter because, even from this distance, she could identify what was obviously an address. As she got closer she realised that the reason she could see it from such a distance was because it wasn’t handwritten, or even typed. It consisted of large letters and numbers, obviously cut from newspaper or magazine article headlines, and was definitely addressed to her.
Knowing that she was bolting the stable door after the horse had bolted, she nevertheless opened the front door and looked both right and left, pulling the folds of her fleecy dressing gown closer round her as she did so, to ward off the cold. No, not a soul in sight, as she’d thought. What exactly had she got here? She’d better keep it to herself and have a look at it later, when Tommy was obviously and noisily in the shower.
Monica Raynor, next door at Badgers Sett, had been up quite early, and had heard the flap of the letter box as the envelope was pushed through it. Not even thinking that there would be no official post on a Bank Holiday, she nevertheless ambled out to see what it was that had landed on her doormat and, as soon as she had seen the crudely cut and pasted letters on the envelope, shot out through her front door, and looked sharply in both directions.
But there was not a car in sight, let alone a pedestrian with a guilty expression, so she shoved the missive in her dressing gown pocket, refusing to even look at it until she had at least two cups of hot, strong black coffee inside her. This didn’t look like a party invitation, and she wasn’t ready for something unpleasant so early in not only the morning, but in the year.
CHAPTER ONE
THE PHYSICAL ASPECT OF THE OCCASION
Friday 1st January, 2010
Everything was pitch-black, and all Falconer could hear, was someone groaning. Something covered his head, and he was unable to move, and still the groaning went on. Every muscle in his body ached, and his head throbbed brutally, timing itself to the groans that seemed to be closing in on him. His throat was as dry as dust. What the hell had happened? What the hell was going on? Why was no one coming to his aid? Was he going to die?
Detective Inspector Harry Falconer gradually became aware that the person groaning was himself, and that the reason he was unable to move, was because he was wrapped tightly in his own bed linen, the three cats for which he was now responsible, adding their weight to his state of immobility. One question, however, still remained. What the hell had happened?
And then it came back: not all of it, but little glimpses, like trailers from a film about Hell, glimpses that he knew would grow into great big, explosive, shame-filled, remembered activity, and he rather wished that he had been going to die, for he remembered that yesterday he had been best man at Carmichael’s wedding!
His cry of, “Aaaaargh! Oh my God! Dear God, no, no, no, no, no! Not! No! Anything but that! Please God, I don’t want to remember!” was as an unanswered prayer, as cats scattered willy-nilly, and he fought his way out of the bedclothes to survey the state in which he had entered his slumber.
New Year’s Eve had been the date selected by his, no longer acting, but actual, detective sergeant, ‘Davey’ Carmichael, and his sweetheart Kerry Long. A truly odd couple who had met during an investigation the previous summer in the village of Castle Farthing, they were as different as chalk and cheese.
Kerry had been first married very young, and was separated from her husband and trying to make ends meet for her and her two sons, when old cow poke Carmichael had come galloping on to the scene. Carmichael, all nearly six and a half feet of him, and as daft as a brush, in Falconer’s opinion, had fallen almost instantly for her, and they had planned their future with no loss of time.
It was just before Christmas that Carmichael had issued his invitation for Falconer to be best man, and asked if he could inspect the contents of his boss’s wardrobe. Somewhat perplexed, but too polite to question the request as it involved his colleague’s wedding, Falconer had agreed, without demur, to wear the Indian jacket he had picked up on his travels many years before.
The material of said jacket of exotic origins was of alternate threads of orange and brown in Shantung silk, giving a two-tone effect that was muted but eye-catching. It had no collar, but had a fine gold braid which was attached at cuff, neckline, down the front and round the bottom of the garment. Falconer had never had the nerve to actually wear it, but had agreed that if Carmichael wanted him to, he would give it its debut appearance at the Register Office.
Of Carmichael’s actual motive for such a request, he was to have no idea until he turned up, half an hour early, as was his habit, for the civil ceremony, only to see the gathering of a clan of bizarrely clad people that he had to assume were members of the Carmichael clan. His outfit, in retrospect, had been a model of modesty and restraint. It was only with the arrival of the bride and groom that realisation of what exactly was happening, had dawned on him.
It was as Cinderella and Prince Charming stepped down from a heavily decorated farm cart, that he understood that what Carmichael had been planning was a wedding totally in keeping with the time of year. It was a pantomime wedding! And, as best man, he was going to figure in just about every photograph taken, and may God have mercy on his soul and on his reputation. Moving towards the happy (happy - but surely mad?) couple, there was only time for a, ‘Giddy up, Aladdin. We’re on in two minutes,’ from Carmichael, before he was whisked into the thick of things, and now his life would never be quite the same again.
The ceremony had, in fact, started ten minutes late, which had been enough time for Carmichael’s mother to whip a hip flask out of the many layers of her Widow Twanky costume and administer, almost against his will, a couple of hefty belts of brandy. They would have been even heftier if he had not physically moved away, for he didn’t think it would be very diplomatic of him to strike the mother of the groom on such an occasion, and therefore, allowed himself to be thus force-fed a couple of what were probably at least doubles.
As the short ceremony ended, Falconer managed to catch sight of the bride’s godparents, Alan and Marian Warren-Browne, respectably dressed in matching kimonos and representing God knows what pantomime - possibly innocent bystanders caught up in Aladdin’s story - but before he could strike out in their direction, he was, literally, carried off in the bridal party to be transported to the reception, where the photographer was to be given free reign.
How he had ended up in the second bridal car he had no idea, but found himself, once again, in the company of that lady now elevated to the position of Mrs Carmichael Senior who, like a breast-feeding mother detecting need in her infant, immediately stuck the neck of a wine bottle into his mouth. Rather than drown, or ruin his exquisite jacket, he drank, and knew that he was being fed by a mother who had had no need of a wet nurse.
By the time everyone was settled at the reception, Falconer knew three things and, if he thought hard enough, he might be able to line them all up, and remember three things. No, that wasn’t right! How many things was it he had to remember? The number three came to mind. Now, what had he been thinking about when he had been slightly more coherent? Oh yes, he had been lining things up. What things? And where? And why? Was it a game he was playing, or a competition he had entered?
He really must pull himself together. Now, things in a line - how many was it? With a shake of his head, he took a brief trip back to near-sobriety, and remembered that he knew three things, and had been about to line them up and look at them, examining them as a group.
Taking a mental breath, he considered the first thing he knew, which was that his jacket was still free from stains, creases, tears, burns or other damage.
The second thing he knew, and at which he had to squint slightly to stop it slipping away, was that he had never found himself in a weirder situation, surrounded as he was by Ali Baba and his forty thieves, Wishy-Washy, Jack the Giant Killer, Buttons, Baron Hard-Up, the ugly sisters, and just about any other pantomime figure he could imagine.
The third thing he knew, he knew positively and absolutely irrefutably, and this was, that he was drunk, and likely to become drunker as the affair went on. There was no escape for him from Carmichael’s lunatic family and friends, and he was just going to have to bite the bullet and let it happen. Even the SAS couldn’t rescue him from this benevolent but terrifying captivity.
Yes, examining all three things in a group had been a good idea. Because he now knew for certain that he had been royally and irrefutably shafted by fate, and would have to let the whim of the wind of circumstance carry him where it would. He was powerless in its grasp, and would probably need a damned good tailor to sew his reputation back into one piece after today.
His explosive propulsion from present to past, and back to the present again, propelled him as far as the kitchen where his three furry dependents waited, practically tapping their claws with impatience. He was well behind his usual time, and they were hungry, after the, in their opinion, meagre scattering of crunchy food they had received for their supper the night before. Their person was definitely not on form, for they were not used to such erratic attention and irresponsible behaviour.
Falconer put on the kettle before attending to his furry charges, remembering last January, when it had just been him and Mycroft, his beloved Siamese. Carmichael had picked up a wife on that case in Castle Farthing last summer. He had picked up a broken heart and two more cats, Ruby and Tar Baby on the case that followed in the early autumn.
It looked like Carmichael had got the better deal, and he, Falconer, merely a heavier heart and a lighter wallet. Of such things is life made. One just had to get on with it and hope for the best. ‘Wye bollocks, man!’ he thought in a Geordie accent, pouring his coffee and pulling out a chair at the kitchen table, as he wondered what shit the New Year had in store for him.
He was supposed to be on duty today, having surmised that attendance at Carmichael’s wedding might take up a couple of hours of his time, as he would be able to retire with a book at his usual bedtime but, as things were, he called the station for a patrol car to pick him up in half an hour, as he was certainly not fit to drive, and had no intention whatsoever of losing his licence as well as his good name.
He started to suffer the flashbacks as he dressed, and by the time the car arrived to pick him up, he was in a muck-sweat, imagining that everyone at the station would have had photographs of his humiliation sent through from mobile phones and the internet, but all was quiet when he arrived at the old redbrick police station in Market Darley, and no one so much as glanced at him as he made his way quietly - almost furtively - to his office.
The criminal element under the jurisdiction of the Market Darley station was either more hung-over than he was, or observing the Bank Holiday, and there were no calls at all on his time, and only a scant number of visitors to the front desk, most of them in search of cars that they had mislaid the night before, and wouldn’t mind some help from any officers on patrol in locating their vehicle. Bob Bryant - as usual - fielded them and made the necessary arrangements for any sightings. Truth to tell, Falconer was not aware of anyone else in the building but the two of them, and for this he was grateful - well, sort of, because it gave his mind nothing to occupy itself with, and he could put it into dorm mode.
Sitting at his desk, however, vivid hallucinations - or were they? - troubled him. One was of three strapping lads, all dressed as the genie of the lamp, all holding a facsimile of said lamp, smiling benevolently at him. Another was of two strikingly similar ugly sisters making up a ghastly trio with Mrs Carmichael Senior, all three waving coyly at him. He had a vague recollection that all three of the genies and the two ugly sisters were Carmichael’s siblings, but no names came to mind as he tried to banish the ghastly recollections.
During the early afternoon he decided that enough was enough, told Bob Bryant to furnish any callers with the number for his work mobile, and slunk out of the building like a fugitive in search of sanctuary. Carmichael was not taking a honeymoon at such an inclement time of the year and was, instead, just spending the first day of the year - a Friday - and the ensuing weekend, with his new bride and her two sons. No doubt his recollection of the - Falconer was at a loss to know how to regard the events of the previous day - festivities; celebrations; bacchanalian revels; Roman orgy; would be better than his own.
He returned home, knowing that he would have a restless weekend, until Carmichael could either put him out of his misery, or confirm his awful suppositions, on Monday morning. He should never have agreed to be the best man. He should have known that any event - even a wedding - if left to Carmichael, would be an absolute shambles and completely bizarre. Who on earth else would arrange, let alone choose to have, a pantomime wedding? It would have been a pantomime, even without the costumes, with his DS in charge.
After a meagre snack that he did not really feel like eating, he dry swallowed two paracetamol and headed for his rumpled bed at seven-thirty, thanking his lucky stars that it was the arse-hole of the year and therefore dark very early, so that he didn’t feel too much of a freak turning in at such an unheard of hour, and grateful that he wasn’t rostered for duty again until Monday. It would take him a whole weekend to recover from feeling like this, which was worse than he’d ever felt before. What had he been drinking? Meths? Paraffin?
CHAPTER TWO
THE ASPIRATIONAL SIDE OF THINGS
Monday 4th January, 2010
I
Davey Carmichael was a very happy man. He had recently passed his sergeant’s exams and been awarded promotion to detective sergeant, and paired permanently with Inspector Harry Falconer, with whom he had already worked two murder cases as an acting detective sergeant.
When they had first been partnered, Carmichael had lived in a somewhat higgledy-piggledy extension at the rear of the family council house, and was involved on a daily basis in the fight for clean clothes that not only fitted, but were intended for the right gender. He led a rather lonely life, as his outlook on things was not exactly normal, but his expectations were high, and he somehow knew that things would come good for him, if he just let life get on with sorting it out for him.
On their very first case together, Carmichael had met and fallen in love with his future wife, and was delighted rather than dismayed, to discover that she had two sons from a previous marriage. In his eyes the boys were a bonus, not a hindrance.
As his relationship with his superior began to take shape, he had proposed to the now Mrs Carmichael but, sticking by the morals and principles that he had been brought up with, but which were perhaps a little old-fashioned, he refused to live with her until they were married, and that was the real reason that the ceremony had been so promptly planned and executed. A couple of his siblings did ask if Kerry was in the Pudding Club, but he had glared balefully at them, and opined that he thought they knew him better than that.
The awarding of his sergeant’s stripes (worn invisibly on plain clothes) had been the icing on the cake for him, only to be firmly stood on, on the top of the cake, by him and his bride on New Year’s Eve - a date impossible to forget, even for him.
Although he had only taken two days’ leave from work - Thursday and Friday - plus the Bank Holiday weekend, to accommodate his wedding and the commencement of his married life, he had been busy in that time, making things just that little bit different in his new household, and had woken up on Monday 4th January knowing that, for the first time in his life, he would not have to fight for what he wore today, as his clothes - or those that he could identify as having bought himself - were hanging in the wardrobe in the bedroom of the newly-wed couple (that physically, he was actually three-quarters of) and waiting for him to take his pick.
He had the wedding photos already downloaded on to a CD, and looked forward to showing them to his boss, and explaining who each member of his family was, as there had been little time for formal introductions on the day itself. It had been a fantastic wedding, in his opinion, and it had been a great idea of Kerry’s to have a theme for it. When he suggested pantomime, she had cheered out loud and asked what else they could possibly do at that time of year. It was absolutely perfect, and what’s more, he was a genius for thinking of it. What a lot could happen in the space of a few months, and he wondered idly where he would be and what he would be doing, in a year’s time.
II
Buffy Sinden would not be returning to her work as a dental nurse in the practice in the Market Darley Road until the middle of January, as her employer was, at the moment, halfway through enjoying his annual thirty nights on a Caribbean cruise, and made her way downstairs on Monday morning at a disgraceful eleven-thirty-eight.
Unusually for her, she had spent the night alone, whether as an unconscious sop to a New Year’s resolution she had not made, or because her age was beginning to show, and turn off the young men whom she found so attractive and irresistible. For whatever reason, for once, her face was washed clean of make-up, and her hair sensibly held back with a scrunchy, so she had no difficulty in seeing the envelope lying just inside the front door, as she descended the stairs - no mascara-gummed together eyelashes, no strands of ill-conditioned, bleached hair trailing across her field of vision.
As she picked it up to examine it, the address caught her eye, and she shuddered. The name of her house and road had been made up from letters and syllables cut from some newspaper or magazine, and been glued, in a sufficiently readable way, for it to be delivered, even if ‘Clematis Cottage’ had suffered a terrible fate.
The postman knew - oh, he knew well enough where to deliver it. Hadn’t it been the postman or one of his predecessors who had renamed her home ‘Clitoris Cottage’ in local parlance? She had not long learnt of this rebaptism of her home, and now blushed furiously as she wondered how widespread the terminology was. Then she noticed there was no stamp, and took a quick peek outside the front door in case whoever had delivered it might still be in sight, but no luck on that front.
Carrying the communication in front of her as if it were an unexploded bomb, she entered the kitchen, and sat down at one of the wheel-backed chairs at the pine table, without altering her position. Once seated, she cut under the flap with the spear of a thumbnail, and carefully removed the one sheet inside, holding it by the tips of her nails only, with the thought that, if this was what she thought it was, then she ought to be careful not to smudge any fingerprints thereon.
As she looked at the crudely cut letters making up the message on the paper, her eyes widened, and she gasped, and continued to hold her breath as the sheet of paper fluttered from her now nerveless fingers on to the table top. How could anyone be so cruel? she thought, and then: how could anyone actually know?
III
The craft shop in the High Street wore its ‘closed’ sign like the pursed lips of an elderly spinster, as if it knew why its door had not been unlocked and the shop not thrown open to the more craft-minded members of the public.
In Forge Cottage, in Tuppenny Lane, Amy Littlemore, one of the co-owners of said establishment,, woke to find herself not in bed, but stretched out across the hall floor, at the foot of the open-plan staircase, the shape of her husband Malcolm, the other co-owner of the business, and her husband for longer than either of them cared to remember, was just discernible in the closed-curtain gloom, occupying a wing-backed chair. As she tried to remember what on earth had happened to end in this scenario, she tried to move, and groaned, as various parts of her body cried out in protest. After a few seconds, it was clear to her that she had not chosen to have a little lie down on the carpet before going to bed the previous night, but had obviously reached her present position as the result of a fall.
Although it wasn’t unusual for her to wake up with no recollection whatsoever of what had happened the evening before, it was unusual for her not to wake in her own bed. Malcolm usually deposited her there, if she had not been able to make it under her own steam, before he retired to his own room, where he could get a decent night’s sleep without her yelling out in her hallucinations, or snoring or urinating whilst unconscious.
Trying to free her tongue from the roof of her mouth, she raised a hand to her left temple and felt what she surmised was dried blood. What on earth had happened to her? Why wasn’t Malcolm on duty to explain things to her, the way he usually was? She raised herself to her knees, clutched at the sofa and rose unsteadily to her feet, then gasped and raised both hands to her mouth before depositing herself on the sofa at the sight that lay before her.
Malcolm looked dead, and it was all she could do not to scream. Reaching out tentatively, she touched his shoulder, then began gently to shake it. Malcolm groaned quietly, opened his eyes, saw his wife standing over him, opened his mouth and began to scream. “Aaarh!” he yelled. “Get off of me, you mad cow! If you try that again I’ll have you locked up. Get off of me, you drunken mad bitch. You’ve gone too far this time. Now yer’ve got ter get some ‘elp!”
“Malc, what are you talkin’ about? What ‘appened? Who attacked you? Was it burglars? Talk sense Malc, and tell me what ‘appened?” yelled Amy, frightened for both of them now.
“You, yer soppy cow!” he replied as she finally ground to a halt. “You ‘appened. I suppose you don’t remember, as per bloody usual. Well, I’ll remind you what ‘appened, shall it? The way I always do, eh?”
“What are you talking about, Malc?” Amy asked, her voice still shrill with adrenalin-fuelled panic.
“Yer broke a bottle over me bleedin’ ‘ead this time, didn’t yer? And if that wasn’t enough for yer, yer gave me a good kickin’ as well, while I was down. I managed to get into the chair, but I reckon a few of me ribs is gorn. You’re gonner ‘ave to get yerself some ‘elp, my lady. This can’t go on!”
“What am I goin’ to do, Malc? What’s gonna happen to me?” Amy Littlemore was still confused and panicked, but her face had drained of colour as a little of her memory returned, the dried blood just to the side of one eyebrow standing out as gaudily as stage make-up.
IV
Back at Market Darley Police Headquarters, Inspector Falconer was getting a blow by blow account of his sergeant’s wedding celebrations, and enjoying every minute of it. It had not taken more than a few minutes from Carmichael catching sight of his boss’s wan and embarrassed expression, to the explanation that Harry Falconer, best man and respected inspector with the local CID, had passed out shortly after the celebrations had commenced, had spent the rest of the reception respectfully covered by the cloak of a Demon King uncle, and had been sent home in a taxi when things had broken up at an unbelievably respectable hour. The guests had New Year’s Eve parties to go to, after all, and didn’t want to be delayed by an over-long wedding feast.
Carmichael, the groom himself, had escorted Falconer home in a taxi, put some dried food down for the cats, and left him to sleep it off. Most of what Falconer ‘remembered’ was a product of too much unaccustomed alcohol and an over-active imagination, and on realising this, the inspector came as close to hugging his sergeant as he ever had in their (purely professional) partnership. His reputation was intact, and he would eventually unravel what was real and what was a product of the sordid side of his own imagination.
His sergeant went a good way to assist this process by slotting a CD into a computer, and calling up what seemed like an inordinate number of photographs from the recent nuptials, and Falconer would look at as many as Carmichael was prepared to show him, for he, himself, appeared in very few of them, and in those, he was just an inanely smiling figure, covered to the neck with a voluminous black cloak.
As relief flooded through him, Falconer was able to relax for the first time in nearly four days. Relief made him benevolent. He really began to see the amusing side to the idea of a themed wedding, and actually enjoyed meeting Carmichael’s family for the first time, twice, as it were.
CHAPTER THREE
INSULT TO INJURY
Monday 4th January - continuation
I
The first call came as the two detectives were admiring a delightful shot of Mrs Carmichael Senior, showing off her frilly garter from the depths of her very heavily petticoated mother-of-the-groom’s pantomime dress.
“Detective Inspector Falconer speaking. How may I help you?”
An explosion of high-pitched noise burst from the handset, as he held it away from his ear defensively. “Please calm down. I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Calm down and speak slowly!” “You’ve received a what?” “It actually said that, did it?” “I agree, very nasty. Just stay at home, and we’ll be there as soon as we can.” “No, I don’t know if the use of language implies a threat to your safety either, and I shall need to see it before I get involved in any conjecture. Keep it safe, and handle it as little as possible. We’ll be as quick as we can.”
As he put the receiver down, he noticed that Carmichael had also been answering a call. “I’ve got a poison pen letter. What’ve you got?” he asked, feeling almost flippant.
“Don’t know whether it’s a case of wife- or husband-bashing,” the sergeant replied, looking perplexed. “That was one of them house-officer, young doctor whatsits from the A & E Unit. He’s just had a couple in - married, like - and either they’re both bloody clumsy (please excuse my French, sir) or they’ve been at it hammer and tongs. He’s got a head wound needing stitching and three cracked ribs, and she’s got a black eye and bruises from here to Kingdom come. At the moment, they’re as high as kites on painkillers.
“He said he didn’t know what to do, not having seen anything like it before, and having heard that domestic violence is difficult to deal with, so he phoned us in the hope that we might just take a look in on them at home, to let them know that their situation is recognised officially, so that if one of them feels they need help, we’re already on the alert. What do you think, sir?”
“Interfering little arse-licker!” Falconer replied, then apologised briefly and asked where the couple lived.
“Steynham St Michael,” he was informed, and nodded slowly.
“We’ll take a look in, then. My poison pen’s in the same village, so we might as well kill two birds with one stone, and respond to both calls. The poison pen could spread, and that insufferably self-righteous little prick at A & E could follow up his ‘so concerned’ call via his consultant, who might just be best buddies with Superintendent Chivers, and mention it in passing. Sometimes you have to be devious back, first, before they’re devious to you. That way, sometimes you win.”
“As you will, sir,” answered a puzzled Carmichael. “Does that mean that we’re going to follow up both calls, then?”
“Indeed it does, my newly-married, recently promoted DS, so let’s shoot off into action.” Relief had left Falconer in a very facetious mood and , although he realised he was acting rather strangely, he decided to enjoy it for a while, and stop being such a worry-guts.
II
Steynham St Michael was a drive of less than four miles, but the weather conditions had become atrocious since earlier that morning, when a watery sun had dripped a pallid light across the frost-bound countryside. Rime coated the bare branches of the trees and hedgerows, and the grass twinkled with hoar frost, and crunched underfoot. Above, a watery sky with just a tinge of pale blue prevailed.
In the last hour or so, however, a covering of cloud had appeared, tentatively at first, but now built into a solid dome over everything, and the temperature had risen just enough to allow mist to rise in wraiths and swirls from the frost-bound ground, reducing visibility for the traveller of rural lanes, but not melting the frozen dew enough to allow him safe passage. Black ice was still a hazard that had to be taken into account too, if one did not want to finish the morning in a ditch, or worse, in either the hands of the inexperienced SHO at A & E, or being measured for a wooden overcoat by the final tailor of one’s life.
Falconer drove, putting his faith not only in his belief in his own mortality, but in the mechanical soundness of his own vehicle, and Carmichael, as head of a new household, did not demur as his priorities and philosophies of life had changed considerably during his few days away from work.
In the town, conditions were tolerable, but when they left the shelter of huddling buildings, Falconer found that it was like driving through cotton wool on an ice rink. Junctions suddenly loomed up at them, surely too quickly, as did trees and telegraph poles, menacingly bearing down on them with murderous intent. All sense of time and distance became lost in this cloud-haunted frozen dome and, even in second gear it was difficult to see more than a few metres ahead.
They stopped twice to check on cars that had skated off the road; losers in today’s battle with the elements and, having checked that no one was injured and that help was on the way where necessary, they continued their trek through suddenly hostile territory, just a little more tentatively than before.
They arrived outside the post office in Steynham St Michael a little under an hour and a half after they had left the police station, and stopped to ask for directions to their first destination, both silently thanking their maker that double yellow lines had not yet reached this rural outpost, for they would never have found a place to park in these conditions.
“First left at the end of the terrace on our left, and Clematis Cottage is the only dwelling on the left before Farriers Lane bears off to the left. Got that, Carmichael? It seems to be everything left.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, because in this weather, I’m liable to forget how to drive, let alone how to find Ms Sinden’s address. Correct me if I go wrong.” But there was little likelihood of that as the instructions were so simple, and the cottage so easy to find, standing alone as it did and, in only a couple of minutes, they were drawing to a halt in front of a stone garden wall with a little hat of thatch running along its top, broken only by a metal gate with a semi-circular top, standing about two feet higher than the wall.
“Well, I suppose it’s behind there somewhere,” surmised Falconer, rubbing the windscreen with his sleeve and peering through the mist. “Best get on with what Her Majesty’s government pays us to do.”
Once out of the car they could make out the shape of the building at the end of the short garden path. Although Clematis Cottage was not large, such were the weather conditions that its proportions were exaggerated, and it appeared to loom out at them, as they approached it. “Oo-er, sir. It looks a bit creepy doesn’t it?” Carmichael commented and Falconer, although he had no intention whatsoever of agreeing with his sergeant out loud, mentally concurred that it did, indeed , look a little creepy.
“But only on the outside, Carmichael,” he said aloud. “And only because of the weather. Agreed?”
“Agreed, sir.”
The door was opened almost instantly, as if Ms Sinden had been sitting at the foot of the stairs waiting for them, which indeed she had. She ushered them in hurriedly, as if they were enemy agents, and herded them into the kitchen where she had cups, teapot and biscuits all laid out. “Please, please sit down and take tea with me. I really can’t talk about this without trying to dilute how a feel with a little cosy domesticity,” she explained, ushering them both to sit down.
“We can get the introductions over with, have tea and biscuits, then I’ll show you IT. I can be washing up while you look at it. I really don’t think I can bear to look at it again, even though I know what it says by heart.” At this, tears began to track slowly down her unmade-up cheeks, and Carmichael took the chair next to her, patting her shoulder and making soothing noises.
He really did have his uses, Falconer thought. He, himself, was no good at this ‘there, there, don’t worry, it’s going to be alright, we’ll catch the bad man (or woman, these days) for you’ stuff, but Carmichael had it off to a ‘T’.
As Carmichael soothed and poured the tea, Falconer rose and wandered round the cottage’s kitchen, trying to absorb anything he could about the woman who lived here. That she lived alone, he had already gathered from her telephone call earlier, and that she either did not enjoy the services of a cleaner or was totally disinterested in the domestic arts, he was learning now.
The dresser and shelves sported a good smattering of dust, and there were stains on the floor in front of the cooker, the sink, and where she obviously made tea and coffee. The lid of the pedal bin was proud of its usual position, and had obviously not been emptied for some time. A small vase on the windowsill behind the sink held dead flowers, and its rank water added to the undertone of neglect about the place.
Retaking his place at the table, he swallowed his tea in one gulp, making his eyes water, as it was hotter than he had expected, then asked Ms Sinden if they could see the letter that she had phoned about. “Oh, do call me Buffy,” she cooed, quite restored to almost normality, now that Carmichael had paid her some attention, and she had the company of two strong men in the house.
Falconer smiled noncommittally, whilst thinking that an error of judgement on his part that large would have her tripping him up, and appearing underneath him like greased lightning before he had even landed. Ms Sinden she would remain to him. Who in their right mind would hand a cannibal a knife and fork, and a cruet set? It was alright for Carmichael - he was married! Oh, dear God, surely he wasn’t jealous of Carmichael now? Turning his mind firmly back to the here and now, he reached out for the piece of paper that was being offered to him.
Even though it had been read to him over the phone, he was still shocked by the wording and the hatred it contained - the sheer spite of such a thing; the hurt it had been intended to inflict in so few words:
How many more babies are you going to slaughter before you learn to keep your legs together, whore?
Carmichael’s inhalation of shock was an audible groan, as he read what had been passed to him, and his whole countenance fell, as if the insult were directed at him. “How do people do it, sir? How do they sink to these depths? No wonder you were so upset, Ms Sinden.”
“Buffy!”
“Er, Buffy. No wonder you called us, and quite right too.”
Shock and horror now over for this visit, Falconer wanted to get down to business, and asked if she had any idea who might have sent such a poisonous message, and if there was any link between the contents and reality; a harsh but necessary question, given the circumstances.
“It has been necessary for me to terminate the odd pregnancy, due entirely to circumstances beyond my control, you understand. I was driven to it,” she answered, wary now.
“Can you tell me exactly how many, Ms Sinden - no, I won’t call you Buffy: it wouldn’t be professional. How many terminations have you, in fact, been - er - driven to, in the past?”
Falconer had to ask her to speak up, as her answer was inaudible, and was staggered to hear her say, “Five.”
A hiatus of silence was broken, as he cleared his throat to repeat, “Five?”
“Yes, Inspector.”
“And have you any idea who might know this, and try to use it against you in this way?”
Carmichael had slid his notebook out of his pocket and was scribbling away in his own version of shorthand. As Buffy Sinden slipped into a brown study, the sergeant thanked God it wasn’t something more comfortable she had slipped into. He began to suck his pen, as was his wont, and glanced across at the inspector, but all he received in return to his incredulous gaze was a mouthed, ‘Get your pen out of your mouth - you know it stains.’
Carmichael was quite blasé about which end he sucked and had often interviewed members of the public with a black tongue and stained lips, which gave him a look of the living dead, and usually frightened the living daylights out of elderly ladies.
But the silent advice made no impression on him, however, as he imagined the enormity of five terminations. Most women found it hard enough to agree to one, and then found themselves haunted by what might have been, for years. And here was this woman, blithely saying that she had been driven to commit this difficult and morally muddy act five times! He was stupefied, and it took a good, long throat clearing from his boss to return him to his notes, and the case in hand.
“...there’s only Tilly Gifford who works at the doctor’s surgery that I can think of. Even then, it’s only because she works there. I wouldn’t have thought anyone hated me enough to send that horrible letter.”