Intrigue in the Village (Turnham Malpas 10) (23 page)

She put her arms about him. ‘I’m so glad we fell in love. We’re just right for each other, aren’t we, Craddock? Just right. I have come home.’

He held her tightly to him. ‘Time for bed.’

The next morning, by half past six, they were back home in the flat after their night camping. They showered, dressed and were ready for breakfast at seven-thirty as though they’d never been away.

As Craddock left for London, en route for a couple of nights in Sweden, Kate said thank you again for indulging her whim.

‘I could quite get to enjoy it. It was good. Bye, my dearest, take care.’

‘And you.’

The chauffeur was holding open the car door for him, so they parted formally. She waved as they swept past her and wished she was going with him. Niggling at the back of her mind was Maggie’s warning. Then she realized how little credence Craddock would give Maggie’s tales of death and had to laugh.

Maggie went shopping after she’d opened up the school, with the intention of scurrying home and not emerging again until it was time for putting out the tables for school dinners. She had planned to use the time to thoroughly clean her own living room, to rid it of any nasty aftertaste of last night’s events. She would scrub every corner, every shelf, as clean as she could make it, to rid it once and for all of anything to do with spirits, good or bad, that might still be lurking. She’d rearrange the furniture too, so as to disturb the remaining spirits. It was the only way she could think of to make the house feel right again.

During the night she’d consulted Dave and told him, wherever he was, that she was doing no more of this seance business. ‘You see, Dave,’ she’d said, ‘it’s getting dangerous. Too real for words. I began to think I really was a medium. Which I’m not, you know that. I’m going to go to church to make a clean start. Wipe the slate clean, as you might say. I shall miss the money but there you are. Goodnight, love, God bless.’

So when the first person she met when she was in the Store choosing some packet soup, just right for a woman alone, was Mrs Jones, she was at a loss to know what to say.

‘Hello, Maggie. All right? By heck! We had a bad scare last night, didn’t we? It was ages before I got to sleep. Tell yer something I bet you don’t know, my Vince came home late last night from the Legion and he says, and I’ve no reason to disbelieve him, that the light was on in the bedroom in the house and there was someone in there.’

This piece of news brought Maggie to life. ‘Did he? Was he sure?’

‘Absolutely. The curtains weren’t drawn and the light
was on. He could see a man and a woman standing at the window.’

As Maggie’s mind tussled with the dilemma of not letting on she’d seen Kate that night at the school, she remembered the rose on Kate’s desk and the whole situation became clear as crystal. She was having an affair, she must be. Married only weeks and having an affair! She’d come out of the
school house
with her torch, and not from the direction of the school building. My God! So, who was in the school house with her?

‘Maggie?’

‘I’ve not gone deaf.’ Maggie flattened herself against the tinned soups, as someone struggled to get by. ‘This is strictly between you and me, right? She had a rose put on her desk the other week. A single red rose with a card. First thing. It was there when I opened up.’

Mrs Jones’s brown eyes widened.

‘Now it wouldn’t be old Fitch, would it?’

‘From what we know of him, no.’

‘Heart of stone.’

Mrs Jones nodded. ‘Can’t imagine him as a romantic husband. So who was it in the school house with her?’

‘It stands to sense it wouldn’t be old Fitch.’

‘Exactly.’

Mrs Jones heard Jimbo cough significantly and had to leave this interesting piece of speculation. ‘Coming, Mr Charter-Plackett, coming. It’s not quite nine. You didn’t read the card then?’

‘Of course not. What do you take me for?’ Maggie grinned. ‘In any case, it was stuck down so I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to.’

Mrs Jones nudged her and laughed and they parted
friends, but Maggie knew she should have said she wasn’t having another seance, thank you very much and sorry like. But she hadn’t, so she still had that hurdle to jump.

The rumour circulated the village in no time at all and reached Kate by the end of the school day.

A mother who freely admitted that each of her three children had different fathers, and who openly declared she was always on the lookout for a new stud to warm her bed, told Kate what she’d heard, while searching for her son’s coat in the coat room. ‘You’re a dark horse! Mind, I’m not surprised, it can’t be any fun married to someone as ancient as Craddock Fitch! God help us! Still, you do right, get it where you can I say. Eureka!’ She triumphantly held up the missing coat and raced out to catch up with her boy, leaving Kate in a devastated state of shock.

How she managed to drive home after school she had no idea. Common sense told her it was quite simply malicious gossip, which in another day or two would be supplanted by some other piece of juicy speculation, but it hurt and frightened her just the same. What was it based on? A rose on her desk? Bedroom lights noticed when they’d slept together in the school house? Who knew about both those incidents? Maggie Dobbs. So now one couldn’t even sleep where one wanted with one’s own husband without tongues wagging. Things had come to a pretty pass.

With Craddock in Sweden, she ate her evening meal alone, and half an hour afterwards fetched it all up, kneeling sweating and distressed beside the lavatory in her bathroom. Finally, her stomach raw with retching and the foul taste of bile in her mouth, Kate crumpled down against the bathroom wall, hammered her clenched fists on the floor and wept.

If Craddock Fitch thought that two nights away in Sweden would allow the situation with Mrs Bliss and the improvements to her home to blow away with the wind he was quite mistaken. In his absence every single householder in Little Derehams wrote to him asking for work to be done on their own houses, mentioning minute details such as ‘loose brick on path to bin in back garden’ or large improvements such as ‘new bathroom’, installation of ‘gas pipes’ and ‘connection to main sewage system’. His land agent dreaded his return but no more than Kate, who knew she had to tell him about the gossip and hated the thought of upsetting him.

But to her surprise, he roared with laughter. ‘What will they come up with next?’

‘It was the rose on my desk and the lights in the school house bedroom that night. They can’t believe that you’d be so romantic, thus it couldn’t possibly be you.’

‘Heart of stone and all that?’

Kate nodded. ‘Exactly. But then they don’t know you like I do.’

‘No, they don’t. It’s so good to be back. Lovely to think about coming home to you.’

‘You’ve no idea how glad I am to see you back.’

He picked up on the odd tone in her voice. ‘What do you mean? Is there something you haven’t told me?’

Kate hesitated and then admitted her momentary fears for his safety. ‘It’s just Maggie’s seances. I know it’s all ridiculous, but what with her saying that and then finding out about the rumours, I was at a very low ebb. It all kind of mushroomed.’

‘Kate, it is a pathetic attempt to gain some notoriety. It’s all rubbish and anyone who believes it is a fool.’

‘I know that, but she’s been right once or twice apparently, and people believe it now.’

‘Well, we’ve no need to, so don’t worry yourself about it any more.’

Kate sighed. ‘I won’t then, if you say so.’

‘I do. My main problem is all these idiots in Little Derehams wanting huge improvements to their houses.’

‘Let’s face it, Craddock. They know they’ve made the most tremendous mistake selling their houses to you and paying a nominal rent during their lifetimes. But looked at another way, any improvement is bound to improve their value to you.’

Craddock blew a smoke ring into the air and with eyes half closed he muttered, ‘You’ve got a point there. I could make a token gesture to shut them up, couldn’t I?’

‘They’ll never be off your back if you don’t.’

‘Wise. That’s what you are, wise. I might well do just that.’ He began to think of improvements he could make without massive financial outlay.

Kate watched the way he smoked his cigar. There was such style about the way he did it. ‘What made you start smoking cigars?’

‘My father smoked them.’

‘Do you know that’s the first time you’ve ever mentioned your father.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes. Are you like him?’

‘In looks, you mean?’

‘No, well, in anything.’

‘Not a bit.’

‘You
are
allowed to talk about him to me.’

He looked angry and got to his feet. ‘I’m for bed.’

‘I’ll be up in a while. Thank you for laughing.’

‘What about?’

‘Those rumours. You know I haven’t done anything like that, don’t you? If I did, which I wouldn’t, I’d tell you.’

‘You’d tell me?’

‘Of course. You’d need to know.’

‘That’s frank to say the least.’

Kate shrugged. ‘That’s how I am.’

‘I see. Thank you for letting me know, anyway.’ He’d said on his wedding night that she was full of surprises and apparently he was right.

The next morning Craddock was in Little Derehams the very first thing. He went armed with a hammer and was to be seen apparently testing walls and tapping concrete paths, knowing full well he’d be enticing an irate tenant out before too long. Sure enough, out came the tenant who’d complained of dampness in the side wall of his house.

‘What are you doing banging on my wall at this time in the morning?’

‘Just testing for the damp you say you have.’ Mr Fitch
straightened his back and made a note on a piece of paper. ‘Needs fresh mortar.’

‘And what about that loose brick in the path to the bin, eh? Going to wait till I break my ankle on it?’

‘Certainly not. While the chap’s here he can take a bit of mortar round and fix it.’ He ostentatiously made another note on his paper. ‘Right. Gas you were thinking of? That right?’

Taken aback, the tenant could only nod.

Another note was added to his list. ‘Gas. I’ll look into that.’ He smiled and took his leave.

A similar procedure was acted out at each house until he came to Mrs Bliss’s. She was gardening out at the front and he leaned on her new gate. ‘Good morning, Mrs Bliss!’

‘Good morning.’ She walked slowly towards him, giving him time to notice the improvement in her.

‘The garden’s beginning to shape up.’

Her thin, angular face almost broke into a smile. ‘Yes. I enjoy gardening.’

‘Can I see the work that’s been done? I like to know my orders have been carried out.’

‘Of course.’ Mrs Bliss opened the gate for him and he followed her into the house. He admired the new kitchen, took notice of the redecoration, sniffed the air and found it clean and sweet, so the septic tank must have been attended to satisfactorily, went upstairs to check the damp patches in the bedrooms, inspected the new bathroom and came downstairs beaming. ‘Are you pleased with what’s been done?’

‘Of course. Who wouldn’t be? Thank you.’

He also wanted to talk about the paucity of furniture in the place, and searched for the right words. ‘I’m pleased. I
now feel as if I’ve done my bit for this cottage. Now, this is very personal, Mrs Bliss and you mustn’t take offence, but it appears to me that a few more sticks of furniture wouldn’t go amiss.’

Mrs Bliss spread her hands. ‘I’m more than grateful for what you’ve done, but no money means no furniture.’

‘I see. He isn’t giving you maintenance, then? Wherever he is.’

‘He can’t. He’s . . . dead.’

Mr Fitch put out a hand to touch hers as it lay on the table. ‘I’m so sorry, I’d no idea. But if you’re in such deep financial water, are you not qualified to take a job of some kind?’

Mrs Bliss stared at him blankly.

‘There must be something in the village you could do, surely?’

‘Before I married I was in IT support. Degree, that kind of thing. But now I’ve no clothes to wear, even to go for an interview. It takes me all my time to feed the children and they’re always growing, so they always come first where clothes are concerned.’