The Village Green Affair Read online

  So they stood up, dusted off the seats of their trousers and endeavoured to look casual.

  Perhaps they made themselves too obvious and tried too hard to blend into the crowds milling about in the road by the Royal Oak, but Mac (on duty for market day) took one look at them and their backpacks and quietly followed them.

  Eddie, growing more nervy and furtive by the minute, turned his head to see if they were being followed and spotted Sergeant Mac taking a lot of interest in them. He took a flying leap for his bike, wobbled a bit, got his balance, and then began peddling away like mad. Tone, not quite so quick, also took a flying leap but missed and fell in the road. Then he picked himself up, got back on the bike just as Sergeant Mac’s hand was within a whisker of grabbing his saddle.

  ‘Stop!’ bellowed Sergeant Mac.

  But he was too late. The pair of them had disappeared at some considerable speed down the Culworth Road.

  A hue and cry grew, but it was all to no good. Sergeant Mac was fuming.

  ‘Who was it?’ a helpful member of the public asked. ‘Someone you knew? What’ve they done?’

  ‘I don’t know, but they were up to no good.’ Sergeant Mac swore under his breath. Damn and blast, he thought. Of course, they’d chosen the right day for thieving, with everyone so busy and the village so noisy, no one giving a thought to their homes. He was sure they had been thieving. After twenty years in the Force he could almost smell thieves, and they smelt. He decided to ring to Culworth Station, provide a description, and tell them to keep their eyes open. Especially around Mervyn’s pawn shop. They’d probably go straight there to get rid of whatever they’d stolen if his hunch was right.

  Of course, the suggestion that burglars were in the area spread like wild fire, and more than one sped home to check, including Sylvia. As she dashed down Church Lane she tried to remember if she’d locked their front door. Had she? Or not? But the front door was locked. She had.

  She crept in so as not to wake Willie and, to her relief, saw that not a thing had been disturbed. Even the aspirin packet and the empty glass were still there on the table. Not a drawer was opened, nor a chair out of place. She checked that her EPNS milk jug and sugar basin belonging to her mother were still there in the china cabinet. Yes, they were. Then she went in the kitchen and decided to open the back door to let some fresh air in and found it unlocked. Drat it!

  Sylvia decided she wouldn’t worry Willie when he wasn’t well. Obviously no one had been in, because nothing was disturbed. Anyway, she’d only been gone half an hour.

  The police in Culworth were at pains to catch the thieves, but Mervyn’s shop, though watched throughout the day, yielded nothing.

  There was an altercation going on by the butcher’s van. Masher Murphy, dispatched by Mrs Murphy to get some steak for his supper, was challenging the butcher about the freshness of his meat.

  ‘I reckon this in’t fresh. More like last week’s meat masquerading as this week’s.’

  ‘Are you questioning the freshness of my meat? I tell you, it’s the best in the county. Fresh as fresh, it is. You smell it.’

  ‘It’s a very funny colour for fresh meat, is that. Not even fresh enough for my mastiff. I should have brought him along to test it, but he’d turn his nose up at it.’

  The butcher, already upset by the struggle to get onto the green in the first place, couldn’t take any more of Masher’s lip. Not knowing his history, the butcher, from inside the van, leaned over his meat display, shoved Masher on his shoulder and shouted, ‘I wouldn’t sell meat to you if I had a van full and you were my only customer!’

  He immediately regretted it.

  For Masher, who had a long reach, returned the push. The butcher, Bryan, reciprocated with all his strength, except this time he almost shot head first out of the van, and finished up lying on his meat display. Masher laughed loudly and long, but hadn’t bargained on Bryan’s tough edge. He gathered his resources, pulled himself up from his meat display, pushed past his wife, who’d begun screaming and couldn’t stop, and raced out of the van. Then he tripped on the top step and fell out onto the green, catching the back of his head on the bottom step as he fell. Blood poured out of the cut and he sat moaning on the ground with the blood sheeting down the back of his T-shirt. His wife, our Bet, screamed, climbed over her husband and rushed around the van to accost Masher. He was 6ft 2in and big with it; she was 5ft 1in and built like a doll. She pounded him with her fists and, being at heart a gentleman, Masher didn’t even try to push her away, but stood like a statue taking her punches, laughing like a drain. Soon she ran out of energy, so Masher picked her up and carried her to the meat van door, stood her on her feet, patted her head and walked away.

  This didn’t solve the butcher’s plight: he was still seriously covered in blood. Jimbo rang for an ambulance, and suddenly what had been a laugh turned into an incident. Sergeant Mac took out his notebook and made a note. Masher declared the butcher had struck him first and that he was acting in self-defence. A witness, namely Jimbo, agreed Masher was quite right.

  ‘Full name?’

  ‘Declan Ignatius Murphy. Number seven, Bracken Drove, Penny Fawcett. Aged fifty-nine.’

  Mac took his telephone number and promised to be in touch.

  ‘See,’ said everyone, ‘we do need to get rid of this dratted market.’

  Titus had had a worrying time that morning. One extra stallholder had turned up and there was no space for him; the rest of the stallholders were angry about the Culworth Road being blocked off and how hazardous it had been getting through the narrow Royal Oak Road - little more than a cart track, they declared, and what was he doing about it? And then the fight. Poor old Bryan had been carted off to A&E. Our Bet was really upset.

  Titus eventually escaped to the village hall to meet Liz after nursery.

  His heart lifted the moment he saw her. There was a hint of her beginning to look like her usual happy self and his worries about the market fell away.

  ‘Liz! My darling.’ There being no one else in the hall, Titus hugged her and kissed her cheek.

  ‘Titus, you’ve had an exciting time, haven’t you? I’ve been hearing all about it from the mothers.’

  ‘Devastating, but it’s all gone away now I’m with you.’ He held her close and felt all the familiar feelings for her rising in his heart. She was the best antidote for trouble anyone could hope to have. He just wished he could hold her and share a bed with her every day of his life. But she’d said no most emphatically, and he had to abide by that. ‘Any news on the Neville front?’ He didn’t really want to know but at the same time he did.

  Liz stood back from him. ‘He’s at Hugh and Guy’s flat. Still not going out. Still not been to the office. Still refusing to mention my name. But he’s eating and sleeping, conducting proper conversations and answering questions about the business. So I suppose that’s all a plus.’ Liz smiled brightly at him. ‘Let’s go to the Wise Man for lunch.’

  ‘Great. I need to bank the money while we’re out, so that means popping into Culworth, OK?’

  ‘Of course.’ Liz finished locking the nursery cupboards, put the dustpan and brush back in the kitchen, gave a last check of the room, picked up her bag and took out the key to the main door. Titus watched her movements, every one so precise, so elegant. She moved, he thought, almost like a ballet dancer, smoothly and with poise, and she was always so attractively dressed. He was so lucky to have met her. So lucky. He adored her in a way he had imagined he would never adore another woman after Marie. She, Marie Margaret Bellamy, had filled his heart and his mind, and now he was experiencing that same uplifting joy with Liz.

  Finally they were both standing outside with nothing to do but get their lunch. Liz gave him a wonderful smile and Titus felt his heart lurch. He would have loved to kiss her there and then, but they’d both decided not to give any demonstrations of affection in public - there was already enough gossip about them - although he could see in her eyes the promise of a kiss, and
his heart thudded.

  The Wise Man was almost too busy for people in love and they ate quickly, glad to escape to the solitude of Liz’s car. Before she turned the ignition key she kissed him. A long, savouring kiss that excited them both. ‘I really intended to go home - Glebe House, that is - to get some more clothes and bits and pieces, but I can’t get in without asking Neville for the key.’

  ‘Don’t fret. I can climb in through the kitchen window as I did before.’

  ‘Ah! I’d forgotten that. I won’t linger. I don’t want to linger. In fact, I don’t want to go at all but I must. I want nothing of me to remain in that house.’

  ‘We’ll park in Pipe and Nook and go in through the back garden. The fewer people who know what you’re doing the better. Then I’ll pick my car up and we can go our separate ways.’

  ‘Of course, yes. I’ve got some big carriers in the boot.’

  ‘Let’s go, then.’ Titus stroked her hand, which rested on the gear-stick. She released her hold and let him take her hand to his lips and kiss it. ‘Love you very much indeed.’

  ‘Snap.’ Liz laughed and then said, ‘Turnham Malpas, here we come!’

  Titus managed to reach the bolt on the garden side of the fence. It opened easily and the two of them were soon in the back garden, with Liz’s car parked in the road. Titus squeezed through the kitchen window again, and opened the back door for her. To Liz it felt odd, very odd, this house that was no longer her home. It was tidy - obviously the boys had been in and cleared up the mess Neville had made in his roaring temper - but Liz felt quite peculiar walking up the stairs that had been hers for so long. Her foot crunched on something, which stuck into the sole of her sandal. She stopped to get it off and found it was a small piece of the mobile phone Neville had smashed. It touched her heart more than she had expected, perhaps because she’d loved using that particular mobile. The sparkling red casing had made it feel so up to the minute, so very much hers.

  Damn Neville. Damn him. How could he have done what he did to her, with such cruelty and vicious, systematic violence? Her insides stung painfully at the memory. To have had those wonderful couple of hours with Titus earlier in the evening and then to have the memory of them totally scrubbed out by Neville’s supposed passion was soul-destroying. She’d get her things, every piece of clothing out of every drawer, every cupboard. She’d rid herself of him for ever. Divorce. The whole thing. Everything.

  Titus shouted up the stairs, ‘I’ll bring the bags down when you’re ready.’ Then he went to sit out in the garden to enjoy some peace, so he didn’t hear Neville parking his car in the drive and opening the front door.

  One day, Neville thought as he got his key out of his pocket, he’d have to come back to live here, and he found he didn’t relish the thought. But he would. He’d make himself come back to live in it, like a normal human being. Key in lock, door shut softly as always, and into his study. The familiar comfort of this room that was so much his own made him feel he could have stayed and not gone back to the boys’ flat. But when he thought about it Neville shuddered. This big house was so full of memories . . . No, he couldn’t, not all by himself. He’d get his clothes, as he’d intended, and go back to the flat. It was safer there, with no memories. Neither good nor bad.

  Then his head jerked up. Had he heard a noise? Was Liz in the house? He trembled with shame at the thought. No, of course not. Just the house creaking. But then he heard it again. In the kitchen? The kitchen window overlooked the garden, and he saw ... Titus ... comfortably ensconced in one of their smart garden chairs, for all the world as though he lived there. His scalp prickled with alarm. Surely he hadn’t moved in? How could they? He’d changed the locks. That devil, though, with his quiet ways, his gentle manner, he could do anything. Upstairs creaked again. Footsteps - footsteps he recognized. Liz’s rapid steps criss-crossing their bedroom floor.

  He crept up the stairs, one foot placed carefully after the other, crossed the landing, remembering to avoid that creaking floorboard - he’d kept intending to have that screwed down - and there she was. He stood in the open doorway, watching her. She had her back to him emptying her wardrobe, putting clothes into huge smart bags from the fashion boutiques she patronized. Neville’s top lip began to curl. Titus wouldn’t be able to afford those clothes. She was worth it, though - she always looked so good. Just as she did now, classy and smart.

  He stood admiring her even now. Was it only admiration? Or was it . . . love? Why had he never acknowledged that word? The more he watched her moving about, the more the idea came to him that he’d smothered all the good feelings he’d ever possessed in his desperate need for recognition, for power, for money, for success. And he knew now that he’d thrown away that good side of himself in one crazy, devastating night of what he’d called passion.

  For her to see him there so close to . . . where it had all happened would terrify her all over again. She’d faced enough of him that night, she wouldn’t be able to take any more. Best to leave without her knowing he’d been watching her, because he knew he was being sly, watching her so covertly. Far away at the back of his mind he thought about Peter’s concept of love and wished he possessed it. The beat of your heart?

  Neville crept quietly down the stairs, silently unlatched the front door and went out, shutting it behind him. Then he drove away. He’d collect the rest of his clothes another day.

  Titus came into the house, needing to get away, because even in the garden he could feel Neville’s presence. He called up the stairs, ‘Are you ready to leave, Liz?’

  She answered him emphatically. ‘Yes.’

  Chapter 15

  The following morning, when Liz went to open up the nursery, she found a sealed envelope, addressed to her, pinned to the church hall door. She recognized the handwriting. It was Caroline’s, and the note was asking her to call for a cup of tea that afternoon if she was free. She’d be home about three. A talk with a close friend was just what Liz needed.

  The afternoon was quite mild after a week of changeable weather so they sat in the garden as they had done that last time at the beginning of her troubles. That seemed months ago, yet it wasn’t. Caroline had somehow found time to bake biscuits, and what with the china tea set covered in a spring flower design and the stunning garden full of flowers, Liz decided to enjoy herself for a short while.

  ‘I’m in love, you know. First time ever.’

  ‘Well! That’s an outstanding opening sentence. I’m glad to hear it.’ Caroline smiled. ‘With whom, might I ask?’

  ‘Titus Bellamy, of course. Who else?’

  ‘Oh! I see. I saw Neville’s car outside your house yesterday afternoon . . . and I kind of wondered.’

  Liz sat bolt upright, shocked. ‘Yesterday afternoon? What time?’

  ‘Let me see. That tea OK? Not too strong? About half past two. I was coming home from the practice. Yes, about half past two.’

  Liz felt terribly sick. Neville must have been in the house when . . . ‘Was he sitting in the car?’

  ‘No one was in the car. Why? Liz, are you all right? You look quite strange.’

  ‘If you knew what that man did to me that night you wouldn’t even ponder if he and I had got together again. No, we haven’t, and we never will. I shall never get over it.’ Liz spoke with her teeth clamped together as though still in pain.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I was thoughtless.’

  Caroline’s lovely, compassionate face spoke volumes to Liz, and she almost began to tell her something of what she had suffered, but clawed it back just in time. ‘I think you must be wrong because Titus and I were in the house about then. I was collecting every single piece of clothing I own, every single piece. It’s all over, and I’m suing for divorce.’

  ‘Oh! Well, perhaps I’ve got the time wrong. Yes, it probably was later than that because I’d called in the Store for a few things.’ Caroline hurriedly changed the subject by asking Liz what her flat was like.

  Liz didn’t answer her immedia
tely. Instead she took one of the biscuits and had eaten half of it before she replied, ‘Have you asked me here to ply me with questions? Find out what you can? Get to know the nitty-gritty? Is that it?’

  Caroline was stunned by her attack. ‘You know me better than that! I just thought you had no one to talk to, and that it might help. I’m sorry.’

  Liz burst into tears. She’d no tissue with her, so Caroline passed her one. Liz muttered through her tears, ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No, it’s me who should be sorry. You have a good cry if you want. I don’t mind.’

  So they sat together in the pale sun amidst the beauty of Caroline’s garden silently endeavouring to make friends again. Gradually the tears ceased, and Liz blew her nose and felt better.

  ‘It’s all been so awful,’ she said eventually. ‘The only thing I have to hold on to is Titus and how much he loves me. Then in the night I panic because how can he love me as he says he does in such a short space of time? How is it possible? It isn’t sensible, now is it?’