Fete Fatale (15 page)

‘You're thinking of leaving?' He sounded genuinely concerned. ‘How sad. Where to?'

I hadn't really thought. Back to Mother? We would sit around the house both heartily wishing we were on our own. The whole thing was as yet more an idea than an intention, and the best thing about it was its usefulness as a catalyst.

‘I don't know. I haven't decided. It will depend a bit on how I stand financially. Not Harrogate, anyway.'

George Mipchin shot me a sly smile. I added:

‘I think the main thing is to get away from the town that killed my husband.'

I added that, I think, because Elspeth Mipchin was coming in with a tray of bone china, with a design of pink cornflowers on it. She looked aghast at my directness.

‘What an extraordinary thing to say. If it were not for your . . . circumstances, I would use a stronger word. Everyone knows that your poor husband was killed by one or other of those drunken soldiers. I've always said that
one day—'

‘If everyone knows that,' I interrupted, ‘they know a great deal more than Superintendent Coulton knows. I believe it's true that
he has handed one of the soldiers over to the Military Police, but there's no question of a charge of murder.'

‘But why not? The man is clearly not doing his duty!'

‘The Superintendent rang me earlier today. Marcus was definitely stabbed on Castle Walk. Perhaps you saw the spot when you walked around it just now. It's becoming quite a tourist attraction, isn't it? This is quite certain, because his blood was found on grass and leaves on the slope. The soldiers were on the lower path by the weir—everyone is agreed on that. Unless they could be in two places at once, none of them could have murdered Marcus.'

Elspeth Mipchin stood there motionless, her mouth pursed up into her near-habitual expression of distaste. Then she turned without a word and returned to the kitchen.

‘Ah!' said George Mipchin. ‘
Not
the soldier lads, then. That's a . . . pity.' I had the odd notion that his eyes were looking at me mischievously from
under
his Crippen moustache. ‘I have the impression that people were rather clinging to that.'

‘I've no doubt they were,' I said. ‘When did you hear about the soldiers?'

‘Someone—Mrs Culpepper would it be?—phoned Elspeth after church to say all those boys were at the police station. She said it had been much discussed after the service.'

‘I can imagine. And thanks given during it by those who knew, I suppose. You were not at the service?'

‘No . . . No . . . We discussed—
Elspeth
discussed—but in the end we didn't . . . '

‘But you were not on the God bus?'

‘No. No.' A little snigger burrowed its way through the moustaches. ‘I believe the two good ladies who organized it were in fact alone on the bus. Again, we discussed whether we should go on it, as we had planned, but Elspeth decided—'

‘
We
decided,' said Elspeth Mipchin, returning with a tray of eatables.

‘Quite, my dear. When I say that you decided I mean that we decided.' He rolled an eye comically in my direction. ‘After thinking things over, we came to the conclusion that it would be wisest to stay away altogether.'

‘It was a real spiritual struggle,' said Mrs Mipchin.

‘It must have been,' I agreed. ‘And in the end you decided to do nothing.'

‘We watched the service on television,' said Elspeth Mipchin defensively. ‘Little though I approve of having it on in the daytime. A very pleasant service it was too. I have to admit we felt happier committing ourselves neither way.'

‘And will you take your seat on Mary's bus next Sunday?'

Mrs Mipchin gave every sign of feeling boxed into a corner.

‘Well, dear, we'll have to see, won't we? See how things go.'

What precisely, I wondered, did she mean by that? Elspeth Mipchin was not by nature a fence-sitter. What was going to bring her down on one side or the other? Did she mean that if, by next Sunday, Mary Morse or Thyrza Primp had not been arrested for murder, and what is more, if somebody had been, and for a motive that had nothing to do with all the ecclesiastical shenanigans,
then
Mrs Mipchin would consider putting her faith on the line and getting on the God bus, since it would have been disinfected of any questionable associations? I rather felt she did mean something like that. Such an interpretation did have the true, Victorian, Podsnappian ring to it.

Elspeth Mipchin had by now sat down, and was dispensing tea. The eatables, I noted, were a plate of Marie biscuits and another of quite unpleasant-looking sponge-fingers. Elspeth was trying to tell me something, I felt. I took one, and munched into it with a slightly exaggerated pantomime of enjoyment. I was tempted to say brightly, ‘Did you enjoy the fête?' but that seemed unduly reminiscent of the mythical question supposed to have been put to Mrs Lincoln, so I merely said:

‘Did you buy much at the fête?'

Mrs Mipchin shot me a suspicious glance. My words earlier had alerted her to my intention of finding out who had killed Marcus, but she could think of no valid reason for refusing to answer.

‘Oh—some embroidered doylies . . . and some chutney . . . some rather good early strawberries . . . And George bought something from your stall.'

‘I remember,' I said. ‘A doll in Welsh national costume, wasn't it? And did you buy anything from my stall?' I added, turning to Elspeth Mipchin.

‘Nothing to speak of. Since George had bought something to remember poor dear Thyrza by . . . '

‘Nothing to speak of. But suppose we do speak of it. Perhaps I could make a guess. You must have bought something while I wasn't there. Mr Horsforth was on duty so seldom that it was quite remarkable that you should have found him there at all. Now what, I wonder, was it that you bought?'

‘I don't understand, my dear, this inquisitorial tone.'

‘A hatpin!' I said. ‘Maybe two? Half a dozen?'

‘I don't think that, merely because one buys one of the
cheaper
articles on the stall—'

‘Oh, I assure you that it isn't the price of the hatpins that I'm interested in,' I said. ‘By no means. What concerns me is their strength. And their sharpness.'

Mrs Mipchin's mouth suddenly gaped most ungenteelly open.

‘Why—?'

‘Because it's my belief that one of Thyrza Primp's hatpins was used to stab Marcus.'

Elspeth Mipchin's teaspoon clattered on to her saucer with a sound that, in the silence, appeared deafening. She said in tones of great horror:

‘Thyrza Primp's hatpins!'

And I said, rather in the manner of Banquo:

‘Horrible, whoever's hatpin it was. But my mind keeps turning back to Thyrza Primp's, because they were strong, and old-fashioned, and available—and because it seems somehow appropriate. You do understand what I mean, don't you? When precisely did you buy yours?'

The strength seemed to have gone out of Elspeth Mipchin. I think that normally she would have refused to answer, for she had the self-confidence of her own righteousness. But I had so disorientated her that her hand shook as she gave her tea an unnecessary stir, and she replied almost meekly:

‘I don't know what time it was, but quite late. You had gone for lunch—I know, because Mr Horsforth was complaining about being left on his own.'

‘What a hide,' I said calmly. ‘So it must have been after two, then. You went up to the stall, and you bought—how many pins?'

‘I bought half a dozen.' She rushed on: ‘I bought six for Mary too.'

‘Ah! Six for Mary Morse!'

‘That's right. She had said earlier how useful they would be, but—'

‘But she didn't want to come up and buy them while I was on the stall. Don't be embarrassed. I quite understand. So you got her some at the same time as you got your own. And when did you hand over your purchase to her?'

‘Ah—er—not long afterwards. Mary was around in the tent—no, just outside. Mary had been listening to the choir . . .
such
a pretty performance!—and I handed them to her then and she gave me the 50p.'

‘What time would this be?'

‘Oh—ah—perhaps three, or a quarter past. Twenty past, even.'

‘I see,' I said, feeling very much on top of things. Aggression was paying off. Elspeth Mipchin's hands were shaking still, I wasn't quite sure whether from guilt, or from a fear of Mary Morse. Either way, she was making no attempt to dispute my upper hand. I actually took from my handbag a little notebook and began to write things down.

‘Right. Twelve hatpins accounted for—six in your possession, six in Mary Morse's. You'll have them still, I suppose? I think, you know, I'll have a look at them before I go. Now, since we have you equipped with a potential murder weapon, perhaps you'll tell me where you were, what you were doing, at the time when my husband was killed.'

‘George—you shouldn't let her—'

‘Really, Mrs Kitterege, this is a
little
—'

‘If you prefer to talk to the Superintendent . . . ' I said, making as if to go. This had an instant effect.

‘Here!' said Elspeth Mipchin. ‘We were here, weren't we, George?'

‘That's right. Home from the fête. Er . . . what time
precisely
was it your poor husband . . . '

Again I had a disconcerting sense of amused eyes, coming at me from somewhere.

‘Let's say between about a quarter to four and four.'

‘We were having tea,' said Elspeth Mipchin flatly.

‘Oh no, dear. We must be precise about this. Not on
Saturday.
Usually we would be having tea at that time. But we had lunched at The Green Knight—a very good cold meat and salad lunch they do there, and very cheap, or my good lady wouldn't normally like going to a public house. So since it was a day out, in a manner of speaking, we indulged ourselves a little. So when we got back from the fête, you remember, Elspeth, we said we'd just have a cup of tea and a scone at five o'clock.'

‘Is that right?' I asked. There was an air of doom and retribution in the air, but Elspeth Mipchin could do nothing until I had gone. She nodded.

‘So what did you both do?'

‘Elspeth went upstairs to lie down on the bed. The day, you know, had been tiring and very hot, and she had to go back later for the clearing up. And I—wickedly, because as Elspeth says we do not usually approve of watching The Box in the daytime—I turned on the Second Test on the television. Such wonderfully entertaining players, the West Indians. A joy to watch.'

‘So that in fact,' I said, ‘you were not together—'

‘
Not
together,' confirmed George Mipchin happily.

‘In different parts of the house?'

‘Quite.'

‘And it would have been perfectly possible for one of you—?'

‘One
or other
of us.'

‘—to slip out and . . . get himself or herself along to Castle Walk.'

‘Quite possible,' agreed George Mipchin. ‘It's only a couple of minutes or so away.'

‘Thank you,' I said. ‘I enjoyed that tea very much indeed.'

The vicarage that Walter and Thyrza Primp had moved into when they first arrived in Hexton to preach the gospel of middle-class morality was a large, be-creepered Victorian residence, suitable for a large family and a retinue of servants. It had long since been
abandoned by the Church of England on the grounds that it was impossible to heat and hardly worth renovating. It was now owned by a writer—a man who constructed bestselling blockbusters with titles like
Corporation, Oil Rig
and
Palace.
He was occasionally to be seen with a pint of beer in The Green Knight, and he wrote letters to
The Times
over the address The Old Vicarage, which gave them double the chance of being published. He was currently rumoured to be engaged on a thousand-page epic called
Town Hall
, about steamy sex and corruption in British local government. We bought his books out of a sort of local patriotism, but he wasn't particularly Hexton.

Walter and Thyrza Primp, meanwhile, had removed themselves to the new vicarage which the Church had built for them (out of the rents derived from their brothel properties, the nastier minds in the town alleged). The new vicarage was a three-bedroomed affair, built in the local stone, but in a style best described as anonymous. ‘It just suits us,' Walter Primp told everyone. And if Thyrza Primp regretted their two-peas-in-a-pod grandeur in the old vicarage, she had by then gained an unassailable position in the town, and her natural parsimony reconciled her to her reduced state. It was this vicarage, which over the years she had contrived to make as cluttered and claustrophobic as the old, that she was now leaving, to make way for Father Battersby.

When I called there, the next morning, I was not banking on a particularly cheery reception. Thyrza Primp, in fact, had never been notably hospitable, even during Walter's ministry: however lavish the spread provided—and it never was, particularly—she seemed to watch each item as it disappeared, as if she were operating some private system of rationing. In the event, however, my reception was even chillier than I had expected.

It began, of course, with Patch. I had left Jasper at home, foreseeing problems, but nevertheless Patch started away like a coloratura machine-gun the moment I put my finger on the bell. Patch had been brought up to repel vagrants and others who might call at the vicarage expecting charity, so he was only doing his duty, but he did it with rather too much of a will. Of course, a vet's wife must expect some of the odium to rub off on her where animals are concerned. As the barks soared into the stratosphere I was conscious
of curtains being inched aside, and knew that when the door opened I would not present myself as any surprise.