Grave Stones (The Falconer Files Book 9) Read online

  GRAVE STONES

  ANDREA FRAZER

  Grave Stones is the ninth instalment of Andrea Frazer’s Falconer Files, a detective series chock-full of picture-postcard villages, dastardly deeds, and a delightful slice of humour.

  The residents of Shepford St Bernard are to have a party in the church hall, in response to a request to boost congregation numbers – only their new vicar is a woman, and a young one to boot, which is not to everyone's liking …

  The morning after the party, the extent of the brooding resentment felt in the small community is revealed when an elderly woman is found dead outside her house, the contents of her safe having disappeared along with her attacker.

  When Detective Inspector Harry Falconer, Detective Sergeant Carmichael, and Detective Constable Roberts arrive on the scene, they learn that the late Lettice Keighley-Armstrong’s safe had recently held a large quantity of very valuable pieces of jewellery …

  As the investigation progresses, with efforts made to find out just who might have been tempted enough to commit such a crime, the violence escalates – making it urgent that the offender is quickly apprehended …

  Other books by Andrea Frazer

  The Falconer Files

  Death of an Old Git

  Choked Off

  Inkier than the Sword

  Pascal Passion

  Murder at the Manse

  Strict and Peculiar

  Christmas Mourning

  Grave Stones

  Death in High Circles

  Glass House

  The Falconer Files – Brief Cases

  Love Me To Death

  A Sidecar Named Expire

  Battered to Death

  Toxic Gossip

  Driven To It

  All Hallows

  Death of a Pantomime Cow

  Others

  Choral Mayhem

  MAP OF SHEPFORD ST BERNARD

  1. Hall 2. The Rectory 3. Three-Ways House 4. Tootelon Down 5. Ace of Cups6. Carters Cottage 7. The Druid’s Head 8. Sweet Dreams 9. Bijou 10. Tresore 11. Khartoum 12. Carpe Diem 13. Robin’s Perch 14. Manor Gate

  A. Red phone box B. Shop C. Hairdresser’s D. Footpath

  DRAMATIS PERSONNAE

  Residents of Shepford St Bernard

  Asquith, Maude – an elderly spinster of faded gentility

  Bingham, Violet – a widow and best friend of Lettice Keighley-Armstrong

  Feldman, Rev. Florence – incumbent of St Bernard-in-the- Downs parish

  Fletcher, Bonnie – a commuter and recently arrived resident

  Galton, Gwendolyn – an antiques and bibelots dealer

  Haygarth – Jasper and Belinda – owners of a failing textiles business

  Keighley-Armstrong, Lettice – an elderly virtual recluse

  Latimer, Toby – a retired gentleman who collects bibelots and antiques

  Twelvetrees, Julius – a retired jeweller

  Twentymen, Colin – a newcomer about whom little is known by his fellow villagers

  Warwick, Wanda – a white witch

  Yaxley, Krystal – wife of Kenneth who left his family on New Year’s Day

  Yaxley, Kevin and Keith – fraternal twin sons of Krystal and Kenneth Yaxley

  Officials

  Detective Inspector Harry Falconer – Market Darley CID

  Detective Sergeant Davey Carmichael – Market Darley CID

  Detective Constable Chris Roberts – Market Darley CID

  Detective Superintendent Derek ‘Jelly’ Chivers – Market Darley CID

  Sergeant Bob Bryant – uniformed division, Market Darley

  PC Merv Green – uniformed division, Market Darley

  PC ‘Twinkle’ Starr – uniformed division, Market Darley

  Dr Philip Christmas – Forensic Medical Examiner

  Dr Hortense (Honey) Dubois – psychiatrist, police consultant

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Andrea Frazer

  Originally published by Accent Press

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by AmazonEncore, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonEncore are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  eISBN: 9781477878897

  This title was previously published by Accent Press; this version has been reproduced from Accent Press archive files.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  PROLOGUE

  Shepford St Bernard was another of the area’s postcard-pretty villages, but with nothing to really attract tourists. It was a passing-through place, with very few houses, and could only be called a village rather than a hamlet because it had its own church.

  As a passing-through place, however, it was ideal, and any trade it did pick up was probably due to the very few facilities that it boasted. It had a very picturesque pub, a garage with a mini-mart attached, a small independent shop, both ladies’ and gentlemen’s public conveniences, and a truly old-fashioned red phone box.

  Thus, it was ideal for the motorists driving through, for they could fill up with petrol or diesel, stop into the pub for lunch or an evening meal or, if they had little time, grab a pasty or a sandwich from the general store, use the conveniences and, as there was a very erratic mobile phone signal in the village’s environs, make any urgent phone calls that could not wait until they reached an area with better reception. There were even benches on the Green on which one could sit and eat a picnic lunch, if the weather was sufficiently clement.

  The church, which was ancient, might have attracted some interest, had it not been located down a small lane, rendering it invisible from the main road, which was a pity, not just because it was a very pretty old church and eminently photogenic, but because it had probably the most esoteric name of any church in the area: St Bernard-in-the-Downs.

  Shepford St Bernard was a quiet village with very few commuters rushing to and fro to Market Darley every weekday. Only one of its houses had been a weekend bolt-hole, and even that now had a more or less permanent resident.

  For the ladies of this tiny watering hole there was even a minute hairdressing salon that catered for the shampoo-and-set and blue-rinse brigades. All in all, it served admirably for both those who lived there, and those who only made its acquaintance on four wheels, and life ticked over there sleepily and peacefully.

  Chapter One

  Friday morning – Shepford St Bernard

  Rev. Florence Feldman (Florrie to her friends) sang loudly and tunelessly as she prepared for the next day’s Special Occasion, which definitely had initial capitals whenever she thought about it. ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ echoed tunelessly in her flat but surprisingly strong alto voice, as she beat the cake mixture for some of her offerings for the next day. The sound echoed mercilessly round the vast, high-ceilinged kitchen of The Rectory, but of th
is she was totally unaware as she worked. This was her first parish and, even a couple of months after her Induction she was engulfed in enthusiasm and joy for her new position.

  Her appointment at St Bernard-in-the-Downs in Shepford St Bernard had been a shock for the parishioners, even those who did not attend services, and a few of the old guard had even had the brass neck to walk out of her Induction service, once they realised that the replacement for the seventy-eight-year-old male incumbent was a young(ish) woman.

  Her first Sunday service had been sparsely attended, the majority of the regular congregation – not over-large in the first place – had deserted the church in protest at having a female vicar foisted on them. Rev. Florrie, however, just ignored the lack of communicants and started on a relentless round of parish visits to try to tempt back the regulars and bulk up the congregation with younger members.

  Although she was unable to find many young residents in the village, she worked with what she had and had increased attendance significantly; this being, in her opinion, for the village to have the opportunity either to blacken her name still further, or from sheer curiosity at how she would perform. Her visits carried on until she had more than doubled the attendance since she had arrived, and was still involved in a charm offensive on those she had not yet won over.

  ‘All things wise and wonderful …’ she sang, as she shot two trays of fairy cakes into the oven and began to make the mixture for a chocolate sponge cake. She had always been an optimist, to the point that her glass was not merely half-full, but was brimming over with the intoxicating wine of enthusiasm and hope. She’d break them in the end, she just knew she would.

  The next day would witness her first venture into a parish ‘occasion’, as she had decided that a parish party was the best way to get to know people better. It was much more efficient than visiting parishioners individually in their homes. Get them all together in one place, and she could make enormous inroads with enthusing them for her mission, as she too had been enthused, with the charming village and the pretty old church.

  She had churned out over a hundred leaflets advertising the event on the old Roneo machine in the little office of the village hall, and personally put one through every letterbox in the vicinity. She had put one in the shop, the pub, the hairdresser’s, and on the parish noticeboard, and exhorted all her regular worshippers to work on their friends and neighbours, particularly those who never came to the church, to meet the vicar and have a good time to boot.

  Her leaflet had advertised it not just as an opportunity to meet their new incumbent, but as a ‘Feed the Five Thousand’ party, with a briefly worded explanation underneath, to advise people that it would not be fully catered, but that the intention was that everybody brought something to eat and drink with them, and so, between all of them, they would have a spectacular offering of refreshments.

  ‘We plough the fields and scatter …’ she growled as she removed the fairy cakes from the oven, shot in the two cake tins of chocolate sponge to replace them, then rinsed her bowl in preparation for making butter drop biscuits, simultaneously thinking it odd that she should have picked a harvest hymn when spring was in the air.

  It must be the rural setting, she decided, as she put the butter on to melt and weighed the flour. She’d spent all her life, up till now, in an urban or semi-urban environment, and she was delighted to find herself deep in the countryside, and working with a completely new rhythm of life. How lucky could a person get? And tomorrow was party day!

  She wasn’t completely naïve, and had already obtained a special license to sell alcoholic drinks on the premises, the bar being run by the publican’s wife. No party, in the circumstances, could go with a swing without a tot or two to get people relaxed and talking, and she’d also had an offer from the two sons of a parishioner to DJ for the event. She had even persuaded grim old Lettice Keighley-Armstrong to come along, provided Rev. Florrie picked her up in her ancient car and brought her home afterwards. Now that really was progress!

  ‘All we like sheep, have gone astray-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay …’ her tortured voice now offered to an audience of only her cat, a dumb creature with no cognizance of the fact that she had now shifted her performance to a snippet from the Messiah.

  Becoming aware of what she was lustily roaring out made her think that it must be the rural situation of her new home that had brought that one to the surface. There were sheep everywhere surrounding the village, their lambs leaping and pirouetting in the sunshine, glad to be alive, and unaware of how short that life was going to be before they graced someone’s Sunday dining table.

  Out with the two halves of the chocolate sponge, and onto the cooling trays, then in with the biscuits. These offerings, along with a couple of bottles of sherry, one sweet and one dry, should be sufficient for her contribution to the party. Now, she’d have to see about putting up some bunting in the hall and inflating as many balloons as she could manage before running out of puff.

  A quick glance in the mirror in the hall convinced her that she had need of a quick trip to the bathroom as she had chocolate sponge-mix stigmata on her chin and forehead, and she thundered joyously up the staircase, now whistling, in her enthusiasm for life.

  She left The Rectory five minutes later, to make the short trip through the graveyard to the village hall, her short thick curls being tossed by the playful spring breeze. Rev. Florrie was of medium height and just a bit on the chubby side, but had a kind face and lively hazel eyes that held those of anyone who spoke to her, and somehow communicated her caring nature and genuine interest in others and their problems.

  As she approached the hall, a stray gust of wind lifted her cassock and wrapped her head in the folds of its inky blackness, and she pulled it away from her face with a chuckle. She wore the ungainly garment with pride, and eschewed civvies whenever she could, so proud was she to have the right to be thus enrobed. She was going to enjoy decorating the hall for their forthcoming celebration, and the liveliness of the wind had merely put her in a more playful mood.

  In Carpe Diem, Coopers Lane, Gwendolyn Galton was packing bibelots in newsprint in preparation for her Sunday foray into the antiques world. She was a dealer in small collectables, and made her way from fair to fair every weekend with her booty, spending her weekdays searching for new stock and cleaning and repairing her finds.

  As she wrapped a particularly ugly but rare Toby jug, she sighed with pleasure, and decided that when she had filled the box she was currently working on, it would not be indecently early to stop for a cup of coffee.

  Gwendolyn was a slim woman with long snow-white hair, passable features, and pale blue eyes. About fifty, she had never been married and never felt the need for a life companion. She was comfortable in her own company and only sought that of others if she was in one of her rare sociable moods. Her solitary existence bothered her not a whit, as her profession was all-consuming, and she loved what she did.

  When she tripped off to the kitchen to put on the kettle, the reason for packing early recurred to her, and she decided that she really must make something for the party the following evening, immediately setting her mind to decide what would have the most impact, with the least effort.

  Trifle! That was it; she’d make a trifle. Everyone loved it and, since the advent of tinned custard, its assembly couldn’t have been easier. It was really only a case of waiting for the jelly to set before adding the other layers.

  Placing a large glass bowl and a jug on her work surface, she reached into her food cupboard and extracted two sachets of strawberry jelly crystals and a tin of fruit cocktail. A quick look in her cake tin revealed the remains of an angel cake and a raspberry swiss roll. They would do admirably, and that would leave only the custard and whipped cream to add, with a few hundreds and thousands sprinkled on at the last minute, so that the colour hadn’t bled by the time she handed it over.

  She could use the water from the kettle to melt the jellies, and it could boil again for her co
ffee, while she arranged slices of stale cake, covered them with drained fruit, added the syrup to the jelly mix, and poured it over, although it would have to be covered and put in the fridge out of harm’s way. Although she lived alone, her ginger cat, Marmalade, had esoteric tastes, and she wouldn’t put it past him to develop an over-riding passion for unset strawberry jelly.

  Finally pouring water over a teaspoonful of coffee granules and adding a splash of milk, she returned to contemplate what other little trifles of the collectable kind she should include for her stall on Sunday. It would be an early start, so she wouldn’t stay over-long at the party; just long enough to have a little chat with her friends and acquaintances, and then head off for an early night.

  Tossing her snowy locks over her shoulders, she settled down, kneeling on the floor to survey her treasures, hoping that the weather would be as fair as today when she went out touting her wares. There really was nothing worse than paying what she considered a small fortune for a pitch at a big fair, then having the turnout ruined by torrential rain, high winds, or a combination of both.

  In Sweet Dreams on The Green, Krystal Yaxley’s fraternal twins, Kevin and Keith, entered the kitchen, to find that most of their view was taken up by their mother’s wide buttocks sticking out of a cupboard door as she knelt on the floor rummaging in the back of the shelves. ‘What the hell are you doing, Ma?’ asked Kevin, the oldest by twenty-three minutes.

  ‘You look like a hippo foraging in a skip,’ added Keith, oblivious to how sensitive his mother was about how big she had got in the months since her husband had walked out on her.

  ‘If you must know,’ she replied, her voice muffled, as she made no effort to remove her head from the inside of the cupboard, ‘I’m looking for something I can take along to that damned party without having to shell out for anything. I can’t just be throwing money around, as well you know.’