Eleven Pipers Piping (36 page)

“But to what end, John?”

“So that Ariel will be safe.”

“That seems both vague and fraught.”

“I can’t say more.”

“Besides the inappropriateness of mentioning any of this conversation to Caroline, it’s the urgency that eludes me.”

“I’m afraid, Tom, it doesn’t elude me.”

16 JANUARY

Dear Mum
,

It was so lovely to get another letter from you. I know how hard it is for you to put pen to paper what with your arthritis and all, but your words cheered me so. Yes, I did flush the yewberries down the loo. There were about six quarts of them left in the big freezer. I thought no matter what was to come from the inquest I best not keep such things at the vicarage. I began to worry that Miranda might root through the freezer one day and something dreadful happen, though of course it wouldn’t because I am so careful, but still, I wouldn’t want to go through what I’ve gone through this week all over again. No sooner had Mr. Christmas left for town yesterday afternoon when the two detectives from Totnes arrived at the vicarage to talk to me about my baking and other things. They were the same two who parked themselves in the village last spring after poor Sybella Parry was found dead in that huge drum in the village hall, one of them
named Blessing, who it turns out is a younger brother of the Sandra Blessing I went to school with and now does something at the Dartmoor National Park Authority. I got the sense that they weren’t best pleased that I had got rid of the berries, but I told them they wouldn’t have found a single seed in any of them. They wondered what I did with the seeds after I picked them and prepared them for freezing and I told them that they went down the loo, too. Had I ever ground the seeds into a mash or dried them and made them into a powder or such, they asked, and of course I said no because of what possible use could that be, though it did occur to me afterwards perhaps ground yew seeds might prove useful against mice, although we have Powell and Gloria guarding the vicarage against vermin so really it would be a waste of time. The reason they asked is that at the inquest yesterday morning, the
pith
pathologist said poor Will Moir had rather a lot of yew poison in him. (There’s a proper name for it, but I can’t remember.) I didn’t go to the inquest, as I said I wouldn’t, but Mr. Christmas did and came back and told me about it as I was making lunch (a very nice omelet). Terrible to say in a way, but I felt relieved. No one could possibly believe I would leave a whole lot of the bad bits of the berry in my pastry, I thought, and said so to Mr. C and he agreed with me, though I had a wobble when the detectives came later and looked at me as if I had deliberately put a whole lot of the bad bits in my pastry and began asking me questions about my “relationship” with the Moirs, as if I had one. I told them they were a very handsome couple and a great asset to the village and that I knew of no one who wished them any harm. They took away the note I told you about, the one asking me to send some pastries over to the Burns Supper, slipped it into a little plastic bag like the ones I use for Miranda’s sandwiches for school. I told them I hadn’t a clue who’d sent it. I was glad when they left. I told myself I mustn’t worry and Mr. Christmas says I mustn’t worry, but I still feel a
bit shattered, truth be told. After Mr. C gave me the news of the inquest I thought perhaps I would go ahead and contribute something to the baking stall at tomorrow’s Wassail, but after the police left, I thought better of it, as perhaps it might not be bought. I shall attend the Wassail, though, Mum. I’m not having people wondering why I’m not there, as I am every year. Besides, it will be Miranda’s first Wassail and she is so looking forward to it, and I suggested to Judith—our guest, as I’ve mentioned—that she might enjoy it and she said she was keen to go, as she remembered it when she was a girl. Yesterday, after the police left, I went with Judith to the Tidy Dolly, which she is thinking of buying. What with all the snow, it’s taken this long for an estate agent from Leitchfield Turner to make herself available! Anyway, the agent who was named Gillian was really quite chatty. She knew all kinds of things about Thornford. I’m not sure how interested Judith is really about taking on the tearoom, but she had some firm questions for Gillian about how much trade the tearoom gets and would have to look at the books and of course the economy isn’t up to much these days, and who knows if there will be fewer coach tours this summer, but Gillian was very “positive” as these estate agents always are and pointed out that as many as 20 new cottages were going up in the heart of the village before very long, meaning perhaps 60 or 80 more folk living and trading in the village, which would boost trade at the Tidy Dolly. I knew she meant Thorn Court and said it was just an old rumour that someone wanted to buy the land and turn it into housing, but she said she had heard that with Will Moir passed away, the widow was selling. I said I didn’t think so as Caroline so loves the place she spent her childhood in, but Gillian said one of the investors was owed a lot of money and wanted it back and the only way to get it was to sell. That could only be Nick Stanhope, I thought, as I’ve heard from Tamara who had heard it from Adam Moir that Nick put
money into Thorn Court when the Moirs bought it, though it wouldn’t surprise me he wanted the money back as I hear he has debts of his own. I thought to myself that surely money troubles would at least be behind Caroline now, as Will must be insured in some fashion, and Nick could probably have his money if he were so keen to have it. I asked if the investor were Nick Stanhope and she said yes. She said she knows folk at Moorgate Properties who told her Nick is angling to be an exclusive supplier of security systems to the new homes they’re building all over south Devon. I thought that was a bit rich, Nick cosying up to a company that wants to do his sister out of her home. Judith said nothing about the Stanhopes would surprise her and that they all had a streak of ruthlessness about them. What’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh, she said. I don’t think Judith is very fond of the Stanhopes. The other day she told me a story her father told her about Caroline’s
grandfather
great-grandfather Rupert going about the village on his horse and setting his whip on folk who got in his way. Do you know any of this, Mum? Of course you wouldn’t. This was before the Great War. But then there are stories about Caroline’s father and women who weren’t his wife, aren’t there? And old Arthur Stanhope ran roughshod over his staff, they used to say, so maybe there’s some truth to it, though I think Caroline Moir is really quite lovely. Judith went up to Thorn Court yesterday evening saying she was going to pay her respects to Caroline, which I thought was a bit odd as Judith had left Thornford before Caroline was born, but then Judith’s family worked for the Stanhopes for generations. Anyway, I had gone up to bed before she returned, so I assume they had a good natter. I haven’t faced Caroline myself. I did send a casserole up with Mr. Christmas earlier in the week, but I didn’t know then how Will had died, so now I can’t help thinking how
inapropr inapproppr
poor a gesture that was. Karla is quite
adiman
firm that I’m guilty of nothing more than not questioning anonymouse requests for baking contributions, which of course I will do in the future. Anyway, I believe Mr. C is going up to Thorn Court this morning to discuss funeral arrangements with Caroline, so perhaps he’ll know better the state of her mind in the wake of this unhappy event, which reminds me that I must give him Becca Kaif’s torch to take back, as I found it under the sofa when I was hoovering the carpet yesterday. I’m not sure if I ought to go to the funeral, though I always find funerals so soothing. Bit of odd news, Mum, before I sign off. I went through the churchyard yesterday morning to take your letter to the post office. You don’t very often see anyone there on a weekday morning in winter other than Fred on occasion, digging a grave or tidying the grass, but I noticed this tall woman in a long black fur coat near the bottom of the graveyard where Sybella was buried last year. You remember Oona Blanc, Colm Parry’s ex-wife, the model, who disgraced herself at her own daughter’s funeral last spring? I didn’t think women like that got up before noon and what on earth would she be doing down here in January? She was wearing sunglasses, and who wears sunglasses on the sorts of grey days we get in winter unless they’re famous? But no one believed me at the post office. “Is there a great ruddy limousine parked out on Church Walk?” old Mr. Snell said, as if models only get about in limousines, silly man, but even Karla said Oona’d have to have dropped from the sky not to be noted coming into the village, which is probably true, though Mr. C said some type of sports car nearly ran Roger and him over in Pennycross Road Saturday night. I went back to the vicarage down Poynton Shute and looked at the registration marks on the number plates to see if any were from London, but there wasn’t a one, so I suppose I could be wrong. I must say, Mum, I haven’t had the best week, what with more flat Yorkshires, folk going off my
lovely food, and now them thinking I’m having
halloocin halucinn
going mad. Anyway, as you always say, this too shall pass. Must get on with things now. We’re all otherwise well here, cats included, and Bumble, and I hope you are, too. Love to Aunt Gwen
.

Much love,
Madrun

H
ave you got a minute? Come and see the Wassail lanterns the children have made.” Eileen Lennox, head teacher at Thornford Regis C of E Primary, dabbed at her eyes while Tom repacked his old leather magic bag.

“That last trick was really marvellous,” she gushed, her hand pressed against the large floppy bow at the neck of her blouse. “And so true. Goodness, I must look a mess.”

“You look fine.”

Tom had heard from Miranda that Mrs. Lennox seemed to find many things tear-worthy these days and wondered if she was going through a bad patch of some nature. In truth, her mascara was smudged and her lipstick, a rather vibrant red, seemed to have skidded past the usual boundaries. Perhaps, he thought, busy woman that she was, she applied makeup in the car—she lived north of the village—an uncertain task on a grey winter morning.

“Each snowflake that comes down from above is unique and
beautiful, just as each of you is unique and beautiful,” she intoned, paraphrasing part of Tom’s closing remarks to the Friday-morning school assembly of the Tigers and Leopards, Years Three through Six, respectively. Somehow, from Mrs. Lennox’s lips, his words sounded slightly insipid and he wondered if he should revise them before he performed that particular trick again in front of schoolchildren. “However do you do it?”

“The snow trick?” Tom closed the clasp on his bag.

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid I can’t say, Mrs. Lennox. I’m still a member of The Magic Circle in London and they would have my guts for you-know-what if I spilled the beans.” In fact, the snow trick was fairly simple, a combination of special paper, water, and sleight of hand, but it produced a lovely, gasp-making finale to a performance, as a simple cutout paper doily snowflake transmogrified into a shower of snow.

“I see, yes,” Mrs. Lennox responded. “My husband is a member of the Paignton Rotary and they would have his viscera, too, if he revealed anything of what they get up to.” Mention of her husband seemed to put some starch into her persona. She took a final dab at her eyes, then focused on his. A news story of some Rotary members misbehaving with a stripper at a club in Torquay flitted through Tom’s mind, and the look he exchanged with Mrs. Lennox signaled realisation of a common thought.

“Anyway,” Tom said quickly, gesturing to the floor, which was littered with a confetti blizzard of white paper. “I am sorry for the mess.”

“It’s nothing. Well worth it.” She led him from the school hall, which had been exited by the students five minutes earlier. “And apropos given the weather we’ve had the past week.”

“That’s what put it into my mind.”

“I hope we don’t see snow like that again for a good long time. It played havoc with our scheduling. Lantern-making was to have
been Sunday afternoon, with Nancy Ablett, our itinerant primary art teacher, at the Old School House.”

“Yes, I know. Miranda was disappointed.”

“Anyway,” Mrs. Lennox continued, “Ms. Ablett was able to come yesterday afternoon. There’s just some finishing touches to do, and the children all take them home this afternoon and have them in time for the Wassail tomorrow.”

Long trestle tables formed a square within the square of the light-filled teaching room, itself a modern extension of the Victorian stone building that housed Thornford Regis Primary. Rising above the detritus of paper and paste and scissors and tape on the tables were skeletal frameworks of wicker or willow in shapes both wondrously abstract and ponderously specific, some clothed in translucent paper and embellished with paint or ink or trimmed with strips of coloured paper or stickers or stars or moons, or pricked with tiny holes in flowery patterns.