A Village Feud (26 page)

Beth was silent, then she said, ‘I’ve faced worse.’

‘Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry you’re having this dreadful time. I’m always ready to listen, you know, should you ever—’

‘No. No. Thank you. You’re very kind. There’s only Daddy who—’

Anna dabbed Beth’s tears away with a tissue. ‘Absolutely. Yes, I understand. Absolutely.’

In the kitchen Greta Jones was saying the same word just as emphatically.

‘Absolutely. It’s got to be the police, there’s no avoiding it. I haven’t imagined it; it’s just as I say. I’ll be in all afternoon if they want to question me and I shall tell the whole truth. I shan’t mince my words, so don’t you fret. The nasty devil. He must have been waiting for her just by the stile. Bought a new overcoat and a winter hat, Russian like, fur and them earflaps it has, instead of that old anorak. Changed his appearance completely, which is suspicious in itself. With Greta Jones on Beth’s side, as well as everyone else in the village, you won’t go far wrong, Doctor Harris. Don’t you fret, we’ll get him. I’ll see myself out.’

Caroline wondered how many more appalling incidents Beth was going to have to take on board. She’d never get better. The police. Right now.

Inspector Gould was at the Rectory within twenty minutes accompanied by a woman police constable. After half an hour they were seen by Grandmama – who happened to be bored to tears and was looking out of the sitting-room window in the hope of someone passing by – knocking at Andy Moorhouse’s door. She had to crane her neck a little as the door wasn’t easy to see from where she stood. She waited, eyes glued to Andy’s vivid purple door. It took ten minutes of concentrated watching before there was any movement. But she was rewarded. Out of the front door of his cottage came Andy, handcuffed to the constable and accompanied by the inspector. He was whisked away towards Culworth at speed.

Later that afternoon Mrs Jones was rewarded for her enterprise by two women police officers pulling up outside her cottage. They went inside and her neighbours counted the minutes until they emerged. But they didn’t take her with them because five minutes after the car left, she was shaking her new yellow duster out of her front window. So what did she know that they didn’t?

The police, with the help of Beth telling how she saw Andy leaving in the middle of the night in his car, finally dragged the truth about Jenny’s disappearance from Andy. Jenny Sweetapple’s remains were found in the quarry after a thorough clean-up and removal of ten years of accumulated rubbish. It was a mammoth task with the police on duty whenever the digger was working and when it wasn’t. But there she was under a mattress, beneath a shopping trolley, under a pile of cardboard boxes and grass cuttings and wrapped in three torn binbags … anyway, she had been found at last. To think they’d been harbouring a murderer all this time. Mind you, they’d never liked
him
, had they?

Everything went very flat after Jenny Sweetapple was found. It was such a long time to the trial but they were all agreed on one thing: they’d sit in the public gallery and see him sentenced.

Weeks rolled by, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, till it was time for the Annual Village Show. Only a month to go and Peter would be home. No one wished for his return as much as Caroline, for she longed to be held in his arms and feel again the comfort of his presence. Beth’s avowed intent to go back to school after Easter never happened. What with the attempted attack on her by Andy Moorhouse and the subsequent questioning by the police, she was back almost at the beginning of her troubles. Alex had three weeks away from school due to stress, he said, but in reality it was his heart breaking for his twin.

Putting on the Show was its usual frantic hard work but somehow the joy had gone out of it and it felt like slavery rather than the happy occasion it had used to be. The rivalry was there when it came to the prize-giving, though, but even that had lost its sharp edge. Jimbo closing the Store became an even worse trial than it had been when he first closed, and he was on the receiving end of a few acid comments from people who in normal circumstances thoroughly approved of everything he did. He didn’t even offer to supply food for the tea tent as he had always done, and that caused Pat Jones some heartache when she volunteered to run it, forgetting Jimbo’s ready supply of food wouldn’t be available.

Stocks Day, with Anna Sanderson in the guise of the Grim Reaper, somehow didn’t have quite the same meaning, because the outfit she wore was the one Muriel had lengthened for Peter the first year he was in Turnham Malpas, and it was so long on her the hem lay on the grass and when she walked she had to hold it up for fear of tripping over it. They couldn’t ask Muriel to alter it as Muriel, well, she wasn’t quite herself of late and that was another thing which upset everyone. Despite the trials of making sure she didn’t trip up over her long skirts, Anna made a really good fist of being the Grim Reaper. Willie had fitted her with a special microphone because practising a week before the big day proved that Anna’s voice wouldn’t reach the huge crowds, especially if it was windy. Willie’s forethought saved the day for Anna; they could hear every word. Some of them felt quite tearful about her leaving when Peter came back, especially those who had received her sympathy and valuable advice at times of trouble. All in all they supposed they were glad it was Anna who’d been shepherding them through what had proved difficult times.

Though they all remembered how they valued Peter and longed for him to be back. Come back, Peter, was the cry on everyone’s lips.

And come back he did. Caroline went to the airport to meet him, eager to see him but almost afraid of how to behave when they’d been separated for so long.

She was standing at the arrivals exit, amongst what appeared to be a vast crowd of other eager greeters. Living in a village for so long she’d almost forgotten how many people there were crammed into the metropolis and began to feel like an ant, unknown and insignificant. There was no missing Peter, though; at six feet five he towered above most of the exiting passengers. His hair was lightened by the sun and his eyes were bright with anticipation, but he was thin, oh, how thin. She raised her hand to attract his attention and his eyes fixed on hers. He hurried towards her, thrusting his way through the crowd until he was within touching distance. For a brief second they simply drank in the sight of each other, too emotional to smile, and then, what joy, they were in each other’s arms.

There weren’t words adequate enough to express how they felt. They hugged and kissed till all reason had vanished. Finally Peter said, ‘Let’s get to the hotel, then we can really talk.’

‘Am I glad you’re home, my darling. I’ve been counting the days, it’s been so long.’

Caroline had booked an airport hotel room so after a brief taxi ride they were in their room, free to talk at last. At first they made general conversation, chattering about this and that, none of it of any consequence except they were putting out feelers, trying to reach the closeness they’d always enjoyed.

Peter finally asked the question he’d been wanting to ask from the moment they met. ‘Well now, what about the children? Will you tell me truthfully what the problem is? How are they really getting on?’

Caroline said they were fine, not wishing to spoil his first few hours with problems.

Peter looked at her and said, ‘Caroline! Please, my darling, stop shielding me, I know things are
not
fine.’

Startled, Caroline asked, ‘How? Has someone e-mailed you?’

‘No one but you. But I do know from yours they’re not flourishing. It’s what you left out, you see.’

Caroline sat down on the bed and invited Peter to join her. He put an arm around her shoulders, saying, ‘Go on, then. Tell me, please. Have they not improved at all?’

So Caroline had to tell him the whole of the story, of their dread of wide open spaces, of Beth’s fear of leaving the house, of Andy Moorhouse and about Beth taking a knife out with her, which made Peter gasp, and Jenny’s murder, of Beth’s screaming nightmares and Alex’s ability to calm her down.

He listened silently, almost withdrawn, while he assimilated what had happened.

‘You see, Peter, they won’t confide in me. They both say they’ll tell you when you get home. I feel I’ve let them down very badly. Perhaps if I’d been their
real
mother they’d have been able to tell me, but I’m not and they can’t. I just hope they can tell you, because they’ll never get cured if they don’t tell someone.’

Peter released his hold on her and went to stand at the window and look down at the crowds thronging the street on their way to an evening out at the clubs.

‘Elijah told me something of what had gone on. About the massacre, the wholesale destruction of the villages, the burning of our church and your clinic, which we’ve now rebuilt and improved on with some of the money the village sent to us, and the raping … she …’

‘No, not Beth, she did tell me that.’

‘Thank God.’

‘But something happened which has frightened the life out of them and they need you desperately.’

‘All I have to do is to deliver papers and reports to the mission headquarters here in London tomorrow morning and then we can go straight home.’ He turned from the window and said, ‘Never as long as I live am I going out there again. Never. I’m being entirely selfish when I say this but there were some days when I could barely function for pining for you, Caroline. Occasionally I thought I heard your voice and turned to see you but of course you were never there. I suffered utter devastation in my heart.
Actual
pain. Just to see you would have been enough. I love you so very much and I shall never be parted from you again.’ He opened his arms wide and she rushed into them.

In the event it was almost eleven o’clock and the bright summer evening already gone before they reached Turnham Malpas. Peter drove most of the way home, glad to be at the wheel again and eager to get home where he belonged. Caroline could feel her burden lifting the nearer they got, and she could sense contentment filling her very bones. She rested her hand on his thigh as he drove and he turned to smile at her. ‘Happy?’

‘Never been happier. I just want to hear you singing in the shower when you come back from your run, then I’ll know you’re definitely home.’

‘Running! It’ll be a while before I get back in my stride. Three miles seems like a marathon. I’ve done no running at all for almost a year.’

‘You’ve lost a lot of weight, far too much, so I wouldn’t worry about three miles each morning, that can wait.’ She smiled at him but he didn’t return it.

They reached the bend in the Culworth Road and were almost home.

‘I’ll drive up Pipe and Nook, shall I? Give ourselves a bit of privacy for a while longer?’

Caroline nodded. She imagined that the children would be in bed but she hadn’t taken Beth’s sleeplessness into consideration. She was watching from her bedroom window and was down the stairs and opening the back door almost before Peter had got his luggage out.

‘Daddy! Daddy!’

She ran down the path in her bare feet and flung her arms about him, clinging to him like a limpet.

‘Darling, Beth. How I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ll go get Alex, he mustn’t miss this.’ She raced away with Caroline calling after her, ‘Your slippers, Beth!’ But she didn’t heed the warning and went straight to wake Alex by shaking him vigorously and shouting, ‘He’s here! He’s here. Come on.’ Then she raced downstairs again to put the kettle on.

Alex’s greeting was more subdued than Beth’s but then he had been woken rather abruptly and was taking time to wake up properly. The handshake he offered Peter was ignored and he was clasped in his father’s arms like it or not. ‘You’ve grown since I saw you last. But that’s only to be expected. You need to put some weight on, Alex.’

‘So do you, Dad.’

‘Yes, but I’ve been where there’s not much food about. Maybe you’re thin because you’re growing so quickly. That’ll be it.’ But Peter felt this unexpected estrangement from his son very badly. Beth was hanging on his arm as though she would never let him go, but Alex almost made him feel there was no place left for him in the Rectory any more. He looked at Caroline and she gave a faint shake of her head so he pretended he hadn’t noticed Alex’s lack of enthusiasm. ‘Come on, Alex, get the mugs out, and mine’s the blue one, don’t forget.’

Alex did so then filled the teapot to the top and got out the biscuit tin, and they sat round the kitchen table and tried to draw closer together.

‘So what’s been happening in the village while I’ve been away?’

Beth got in first. ‘Jimmy Glover’s Sykes has died of old age and he isn’t getting a new dog, says he can’t be bothered with the walking. Evie Nicholls has bought a puppy and she’s called it Tatty, and it is! Jimbo has closed the Store, and—’

‘Jimbo’s closed the Store? Really?’

The three of them nodded and said yes.

‘What does he do all day?’

‘Works on his new website where he sells his mail order stuff and apparently Mrs Jones is working so hard she’s going to have to work full-time or get an assistant.’

‘How does everyone manage without the Store?’

Caroline told him how difficult it was but that now they had two mobile shops that came round instead, although it wasn’t the same at all. She recognized then that Peter was looking exhausted, and decided it was time he went to bed.