Intrigue in the Village (Turnham Malpas 10) Read online

  ‘They disapproved.’

  ‘Ah! That’s understandable.’

  Kate looked askance and didn’t reply. She had a pile of small boxes of wedding cake to post.

  ‘Oh! They’re going all over the world! How wonderful.’ Linda enjoyed herself weighing them all and working out the value of stamps needed for each one. ‘Three to Africa! Of course, that’s where you worked before you came here. They’ll be surprised.’

  Rather tartly Kate replied, ‘I haven’t put our ages on the cake, Linda.’

  ‘Oh! I didn’t mean that. I meant surprised at you getting married. You know with you being . . . a bit older than usual. They’ll be pleased though, I expect.’

  ‘I hope so. I’d like a receipt, please.’

  ‘Of course. A receipt. Got to watch the housekeeping, eh? Don’t expect old Fitch lets anything slip through; mustard on accounts, I understand. Must have had to be, the way his business has taken off. Look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves, eh?’ Linda printed out the receipt for her and pushed it under the grille.

  Kate felt as though she’d been beaten with a meat tenderizer. It really was abominable the way this woman gossiped. She wondered why Jimbo kept her on. She caught Tom’s eye watching them and saw he too was annoyed.

  As Linda dropped Kate’s boxes into the postbag she said, ‘We’ve had some lovely children in from the school. They must be new. No uniform, I noticed. Very well spoken.’

  ‘That’ll be the Bliss children. Yes, they are new, started today. Thank you, Linda.’

  ‘Someone said there were new people in Simone Paradise’s old house so it must be them. I saw them getting on the Little Derehams minibus when they left here. Bet it’s in a mess. There’s been no one in there since she . . . got burnt up, and it wasn’t up to much even then.’

  ‘Time you learnt to curb your tongue, Linda.’

  Linda puffed up like a disgruntled turkey cock. ‘I’m not a kid in your school.’

  ‘Pity. I’d soon have you knocked into shape.’

  ‘Well! Really!’

  Kate slammed out of the Store, furious with herself for having allowed Linda to anger her, but it was a shock learning that the Blisses were living in Simone’s old house. In her heart, she had grieved for Simone for a long time. But her death had brought to an end an episode in her life of which she was not proud. Black magic! She must have been a complete idiot. She drove up to the Big House, hoping Craddock would be home early and she could heal herself by telling him all about her day.

  The same thing happened each day that week. Immediately after school finished, the Bliss twins came into the Store, made a rapid choice of five bars of chocolate and then ran hell for leather to catch the minibus.

  But the following week they didn’t come in. Both Tom and Jimbo noticed them dithering by the school wall, as though making up their minds whether or not to come in the Store, but instead reluctantly climbing on to the bus with their sisters.

  They’d told their mother that Mrs Fitch was giving everyone a bar of chocolate each day to celebrate her wedding. Mrs Bliss knew that wasn’t true, but who was she to chastise them for stealing, when she’d done the very same thing each day to put food on the table? In any case, they were so transparently honest it hadn’t occurred to them that five bars gave their game away. Mrs Bliss knew they’d either shoplifted the chocolate or stolen the money for it. Bless their dear hearts, thinking of her. How bad had things got that she was blessing them for stealing, when all their lives, honesty had been their watchword.

  But on the Friday, the bell jingled and all four of them came in to the Store. Una and Della wandered off on their own, while Philip and Paul kept Jimbo in conversation. The two little girls then headed for the outside door and the two boys abruptly ended their conversation and dived out after them. They rushed on to the bus and were gone.

  ‘Mr Charter-Plackett! I think those girls have—’

  ‘Thank you, Linda, I guessed.’

  ‘But don’t you want to—’

  ‘I said thank you.’ Jimbo’s dismissive tone smarted. Honestly, thought Linda, for years he’s been glad for me to tell him if I suspected shoplifting.

  ‘I was only doing my duty as you see it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But, you’ve always said—’

  ‘Linda!’ Jimbo thundered. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘That’s an example to set our Lewis. I’ll let him come and watch how to do it. He likes chocolate.’

  Jimbo marched over, removed his boater and pressed his face to the grille. In a stage whisper he said, ‘Will you leave it to me? I saw what happened, I have got eyes, and I shall deal with it. Right?’

  There was something about the authoritative manner in which he clapped his boater back on that angered Linda. How was she to know? More loudly than necessary she said sarcastically, ‘You’d better give me a list of who can and who can’t shoplift, then I shan’t make any more mistakes.’

  Jimbo, already going back to the till, paused, recollected he’d decided not to sack Linda again because of the humble pie he’d have to eat to get her back, then continued on his way, fuming. For two pins he’d stop the Post Office; it was more of a service than a moneyspinner after all. But then he remembered it drew shoppers in, and that otherwise the superstore on the by-pass would get their trade. No, he’d keep the Post Office, but pray he’d come across someone with Linda’s skills. If he did then, bang! Out she’d go. He found it incredible that pathetic, gossipy Linda was indispensable to him. Still, her intimate knowledge of the goings-on in the village was a valuable asset. The customers all loved her for it, unless the gossip was about themselves. But he’d have a word with Kate on Sunday. Something had to be done about the Blisses. He couldn’t afford to have both mother and children stealing, much as they might need it. Jimbo was convinced they were grindingly poor and, in addition, unaccustomed to it.

  Chapter 3

  Maggie Dobbs threw her shopping bag on to the floor and swore, roundly and loudly, as her cleaning shoes and apron fell out of it. There was no one to hear so it didn’t matter. Her outdoor shoes she shoved off her feet and let them drop on to the tiles along with her coat and scarf. She’d have to give up this school job. It was more than a Christian soul should have to tolerate.

  It was a wet day and the kids would kick off their wellingtons but not before they’d plastered her nice clean floor with muddy footprints. Anyone would think they’d done a day’s work on a building site before they arrived at school. Thick mud here there and everywhere. So what does her nibs Kate Pascoe or rather Fitch, decide? ‘Mrs Dobbs,’ she’d said. ‘This floor will have to be cleaned before you go or it will be all over the school.’ She’d added please but only as an afterthought. Maggie hated wet days, because if the floor needed cleaning, which it always did, it meant moving all the boots and some of the children didn’t have them named so how the heck was she supposed to know whose boots went under which peg? She wasn’t a mind reader.

  Maggie heaved herself up and went to switch on the kettle. Entering her kitchen always gave her heart a lift. It was so spanking smart and up to date it was unbelievable she was renting a cottage at least four hundred years old. Don Wright – and . . . Vera was it? – who’d rented it to her had done a great job of modernizing the place. The bathroom was to die for, you felt cleaner just walking into it. White from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. Wonderful! Such a pity that her Dave had died two weeks before they’d been due to move in. He’d have loved it here, after that ghastly flat they’d rented for fifteen years.

  Maggie sat back with a cup of scalding hot tea and allowed herself to think for a moment. Feet propped on the coffee table, she ruminated on her job. It was very trying. Every morning by eight o’clock she was at the school sorting out the day for them all. Back at eleven-thirty to take delivery of the hot school dinners from the caterer’s van, put out the tables, and keep a watchful eye on the ladies who served the dinners to the childr
en, to make sure they cleaned up their own mess of spilt food before they went. She conducted a vicious war with them day in, day out.

  Home again and then back at three, to begin cleaning ready for the next day. Then, lo and behold, there were sometimes evening classes. Like that embroidery group that rented a classroom once a week in term-time. She’d warned them about leaving needles around . . . There came a knock at the door.

  She opened her front door to find a woman standing there. She pretended not to recognize her. She wore thick mascara and her hair was blacker than the night. She was slim too, like Maggie would never be in a month of Sundays.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Maggie Dobbs?’

  ‘I live here, yes.’

  ‘Can I come in?’ The woman looked almost furtively around as though making sure she hadn’t been seen knocking on Maggie Dobbs’s door.

  Maggie opened the door wider and let her in. A strong waft of a cloying oriental perfume hit her nostrils. She’d have to open a window when this woman left.

  ‘I’m Venetia from the Big House.’

  Unimpressed, Maggie nodded.

  ‘I run the leisure centre for the staff training college there.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Oh! Right. I wondered if I’d be welcome . . . you know.’ Venetia winked knowingly. ‘I’d be very discreet.’

  Why couldn’t she come straight out with it? ‘I think I know what you’re hinting at, but I don’t do it for nothing. You have to pay. I have my expenses.’

  ‘Oh! Of course. I wouldn’t expect you to. Five pounds, I understand. I’ll pay in advance. Here. Look. When’s the next . . . ’ She gave another of her knowing winks.

  ‘Tonight as it happens and there’ll be room. Eight-thirty sharp. No parking outside.’

  Venetia passed her the five-pound note with a sleight of hand movement, as though the room was full of people who mustn’t know. ‘Absolutely. Understood. Thank you. See you then.’

  Maggie tucked the note into the jug Dave had won for her at a fair. He’d had the choice of two jugs and to her annoyance he’d chosen the one she thought the least attractive of the two, but sentiment made her keep it when she’d moved. It seemed right to keep the money in there too. After all, it was Dave who’d got her into this lark in the beginning. It felt like a lucky charm. That made five for tonight. Perfect.

  By eight minutes past eight the room was ready. A fire was burning in the grate, black plastic tulips in a black vase stood on the round table – it had to be round, couldn’t be square – and incense sticks burned on the mantelpiece, the hearth and the sideboard. She switched off the main light so the room was illuminated by the flames of the fire and a small table lamp with an almost transparent red cloth laid over the shade to create a mystical, fiery glow.

  Maggie sat down to wait, getting herself in the mood. This old house did more for the atmosphere than that ghastly flat had done. Old memories, which the house had stored over the centuries, seemed to swirl around the room, and the flickering flames sometimes made her guests shudder with fear, for, once she’d got them going, the shadows they made appeared like people moving around the room. Ghostly, really.

  At twenty-five past eight, the first of the guests arrived. It was the Senior twins, dressed in black from head to foot. They left their woolly hats at home when they came to one of Maggie’s meetings and wore black headscarves instead. They each put their five-pound notes into the jug in the centre of the table and sat down next to each other. Then came Venetia, very obviously hyped up about the meeting, who took her place opposite the Senior sisters and next to Maggie herself. Conversation was never encouraged at the start so they sat in silence. Next to come was Greta Jones, then one of the weekenders dressed in what she considered was appropriate clothing for the country; namely cords, and a woolly rustic embroidered sweater, which disguised her bulges very effectively. She never gave her name, even though she’d been a member of the group since its initiation.

  Once all the five-pound notes had been put in the jug, it was removed along with the black tulips, and Maggie placed her hands, fingers widespread, on the polished table.

  ‘I feel the spirits very strongly tonight. They’re all around, I know,’ she said. Her guests followed suit and their fingertips made a complete linking circle. Total silence fell.

  The only movements in the dark were the shadows made by the flames on the walls. The corners of the room were eerie and threatening and the atmosphere was supercharged with anticipation. On occasion, Maggie went straight into a trance, other times it took a while for the spirits to move her. When Maggie’s head began rolling from side to side and a low moaning came from her throat, they knew she was almost away with the spirits. Slowly, her head began circling motions, dropping on to her chest and then backwards over the back of her seat, with such increasing violence it seemed it might drop off, and the moaning grew louder.

  Then, in a voice totally unlike her own, she called out as though in agony, ‘Who’s there? Who’s there?’

  The fire sparked, momentarily flooding the room with light. Only Maggie’s eyes were closed, her heavy lids pressed tight together, her dark purple lips twisted tortuously as though trying to frame words that would not come. Venetia coughed; Greta Jones shuddered; the Senior sisters pressed closer to each other; the eyes of the weekender darted hither and thither with fear.

  ‘Who’s there?’ came the shuddering cry of Maggie Dobbs.

  Then she shrieked and her voice became unearthly. ‘It’s me. I’ve a message for one of you. I see jars and jars and . . . labels and . . . jam, that’s right . . .’

  Greta Jones’s eyes grew large. ‘Oh God!’

  ‘A message. Yes. You have trouble where you work. Someone doesn’t like you. Take care. There’s trouble with . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ croaked Greta Jones.

  There was a long, shuddering sigh and then silence.

  Whispering more to herself than anyone, Greta Jones said, ‘That’s Linda, I bet. It’ll be her, no doubt. She’s been sparring for a fight for weeks.’

  The spirit’s voice continued. ‘Where are the twins?’

  The Senior sisters jerked in unison.

  ‘They’re both well,’ answered Maggie in her own voice. ‘They’re here. Do you have a message for them?’

  Silence. And then a voice spoke through Maggie as though from the depths of the grave. ‘They are not well. They’re full of sin. I know. I keep a constant watch. My heart bleeds. Bleeds. Si-i-i-n-n-n.’

  The Senior sisters shook with terror.

  ‘What is their sin? What have they done? Tell us if you can.’

  ‘Thieves! Thieves, I say.’ Again the unearthly tones filtered through every shadow. ‘Shame on you. I saw, I saw. I’ve kept watch since the first day I came here. I know my twins’ every move.’

  The sisters’ faces drained to dead white, horror paralysing them.

  The voice from the grave continued. ‘There’ll be a punishment to come for what they’ve done. A punishment more terrible than anything they’ve ever known.’

  The sister seated next to Greta Jones collapsed against her and it was all Greta could do to stop her falling to the floor. The circle was broken. Maggie gave a great cry. The cat jumped on Venetia’s knee and she screamed and screamed with shock. Alarmed, it jumped off, knocked over the table lamp, and the bulb shattered on the hearth, leaving them in darkness except for the light of the flames.

  The weekender leapt to her feet to flick the switch for the centre light. Greta Jones shrieked, ‘No! No! Maggie’s not come out of her trance, it could kill her.’

  There were five hearts beating far too fast and five people wishing the light could be turned on. Maggie snapped her fingers twice and came back to life.

  ‘Dear God! What was the message? It must have been terrible. I got such vibrations! More like shock waves. What happened?’ Maggie lay back in her chair exhausted, apparently drained of life. She always said the sprirts were something se
parate from herself and that she knew nothing when she ‘awoke’.

  Greta Jones was the first to find her voice. ‘It was the twins’ mother. She says, well, she says they’ve been stealing and they can expect a terrible punishment.’ Greta choked on her last words, hardly daring to say what they’d heard.

  Maggie, visibly shaking, went in the kitchen and got herself a drink of water, then came back to sit down. ‘Well, have you?’

  Speaking as one, the two sisters whispered, ‘We have! We have!’

  ‘Then you’d better put it to rights, hadn’t you?’

  They both got out their handkerchiefs and wiped their eyes.

  ‘Mother always knows best.’

  ‘She said so when she was here.’

  ‘We can’t give it back though.’

  Maggie enquired what it was they’d stolen.

  ‘F-f-food from the w-w-wedding p-p-arty.’

  ‘But we’ve eaten it.’

  ‘Except there’s still some wedding cake in the tin.’

  ‘We could put that back.’

  Maggie shrugged. ‘That’s it for tonight. I can’t do no more. Not tonight. I’m shattered.’

  Greta’s hand clutched Maggie’s. ‘Of course, we understand. Same time next week?’

  Maggie nodded and lay back, her eyes closed.

  Greta got to her feet. ‘That’s it then. We’d better go. What a night! The best for a while.’

  ‘Don’t you always hear voices from the other side then?’ Venetia asked of Greta, disappointed no one from the other side had had a message for her.

  ‘Sometimes it’s all jumbled and we can’t tell who it is. But tonight! We couldn’t have had a clearer message, could we? Come on, you two, we’ll walk home together seeing as I pass your house. Take my arm.’

  The Senior sisters each took an arm and they went home, weak at the knees, desperate to figure out how they could make amends. For their mother to know they were still stealing . . . it really was too terrible to contemplate! And the punishment, what would that be? Their mother was a past master at punishments. They’d been glad when she died, but apparently after seven years of silence, she’d returned from the grave to watch over them.