Pascal Passion (The Falconer Files Book 4) Read online

  Blushing at this unusually strong language, Harriet contributed, ‘I understand they go to that private school on the other side of Market Darley, now – as boarders, I believe.’

  ‘I presume they have a psychiatric dorm, if they’ve taken those two,’ opined the head teacher, lifting a wry eyebrow. ‘Now, let’s see if we can locate Charlotte Chadwick to get her to put these cakes into some sort of order, and get prices on them.

  ‘Which reminds me: the decorators are arriving just before we close for the term, so we’d better get Charlotte to brew an urn of strong tea; they always seem to need so much of it. Well, they’ll just have to pour their own, and be grateful that we even have such a thing as a tea urn. Hmph!’ she concluded, with a rebellious expression on her face.

  *……*……*

  II

  An aerial view of Shepford Stacey would have revealed a number of individuals moving away from the school premises and off and away to attend to their business for the day.

  Maura MacPherson and Martha Borrowdale walked together, living next door to each other just across Back Lane from the school, in Creepers and The Vines respectively. Martha Borrowdale was thirty-six years old, determined to be happily married, and had three children. Isaac, her five-year-old, she had just dropped off at the school, along with Jacob, his ten-year-old brother who was in the upper class. Maria, her two-year-old, obediently held her mother’s hand as they strolled slowly back home.

  Martha was overtly respectable, and was viewed as a terrific snob, a wife who spent a lot of time ignoring the shortcomings of her husband, who was no stranger to the inside of a police cell, although all that had been a long time ago. She kept her nose in the air, and constantly kidded herself that people had either forgotten all that business, or had never even heard of it. If only she could keep him on the straight and narrow, she could live the life she pretended she was already living, but she was often in a state of low-grade fear, that something else would jump out of the woodwork at her, concerning either his past, or his far from crystal-clear present.

  He was supposed to be working from home at the moment, but at what, she had no idea. She just knew he spent an inordinate amount of time on the computer, and had files on that Machiavellian machine that she had no access to, and this fact existed as a low-grade worry at the back of her mind. But she didn’t want to be distracted by thoughts like that now, and brought her thoughts back to the present with considerable effort, tuning in again to what Maura was saying.

  Maura and Cameron MacPherson had only the one child, Angus, who was also five, and their house was only half the size of the Borrowdales’ residence – but one would never have guessed if one had listened to Maura MacPherson. Given her endless monologues on the trials she had bringing up her one ‘wee chick’, and the amount of labour she expended on her home, one would have thought that she had a brood as large as Victoria and Albert’s, and a residence to rival the size of any of those inhabited by Victorian royalty.

  Adrian Snoddy wandered slowly up Sheep Pen Lane to the caravan he shared with his wife, Pippa, and their five-year-old son, Milo. He was not in any hurry to get back to the doubtful comforts of the caravan that they had lodged on the site of the old monastery gardens, and rather doubted his sanity when they had decided to have a year-long adventure, living as travellers. Both had moneyed parents, and he was losing his conviction that one should try to live as others live for a while, to give one a balanced view of life.

  He’d just decided that he would inform Pippa that they would see the school term out for Milo’s sake, and then return to their familiar familial roots, when he heard his name called from across the road, turned, and saw Gabriella LeClerc waving at him. ‘Do you fancy a coffee before you go home?’ she called, holding her hands one either side of her mouth in the way of an improvised megaphone. ‘The kettle’s on, and I’ve got Jammie Dodgers.’ How could he resist?

  Turning on his heel and heading across the road in the direction of Chimneys, he waved to indicate his consent, and a smile lit his previously gloomy countenance. He’d have coffee and Jammie Dodgers with Gabriella, then he’d go back to the caravan and inform Pippa of his decision about their living arrangements. If she didn’t like it, she could stay in that clapped-out old biscuit tin on her own. He didn’t see why he had to be part of realising her gypsy-life dream any longer.

  In Forsythia Cottage Stevie (née Stephanie) Baldwin had just got back from dropping off her son Spike at the school. She would be returning there after the school day was over, to give it an extra-thorough clean as it was the end of term, but before that, she had her shift behind the bar of one of the two local pubs.

  She was a single mother, only twenty-two, and she lived, still, with her parents and grandmother, who all lent a hand in Spike’s upbringing, and were very generous with their time while Stevie went to work. Patsy and Frank Baldwin had not exactly been delighted when their only daughter had informed them, at the age of seventeen, that she was pregnant, and had no plans to marry the baby’s father, but since Spike’s birth, they had doted on him, as had Frank’s mother Elsie, who was now eighty years old, and thoroughly enjoying the amount of waiting-on to which her age seemed to entitle her.

  ‘Shall I get the cakes at the school sale?’ Stevie called, hanging up her jacket and slipping off her shoes in preference for a slipper. She had need of only one, for comfort. ‘I can get there a few minutes early and get the pick of the selection. I can give them to you to bring home, Mum, when you collect Spike, and we can all have a nice little treat before I go into work this evening, can’t we?’

  ‘Nice one, Stevie,’ called her mother, reboiling the kettle for tea, now that her daughter was back from the school run. ‘Go and give your grandmother a shout, and tell her I’ve got the tea made, and she’d better get a move on getting down here or all the chocolate biscuits will be gone.’

  In Paddock View on Four Stiles, Hartley and India Bywaters-Flemyng were taking an overview of the bookings for both the riding school and the holiday cottages; a terrace of refurbished properties called Blacksmith’s Terrace and located on Forge Lane.

  ‘We’ve got number one vacant until after Easter,’ Hartley stated, he being the one who was responsible for the bookings and maintenance of the little cottages. ‘The Cliftons in number two are taking advantage of the extra days free at Easter, so they won’t be off until Tuesday, and then I can get that prepped for the next visitors. The Smithers and Mrs Course don’t go until Tuesday either – that’s three and four – and I’ve got a couple arriving anytime now for number five – staying for the long Easter weekend and through to the following Friday. What’ve you got?’

  ‘No lessons after today till Tuesday, then I’m just about booked up,’ replied his wife India. ‘You know how the little ankle-biters love their ponies and horses, and I’m up to my eyes in extra lessons. There’s also a booking for Wednesday for a group from Fallow Fold to go hacking for the day. That’s a nice little earner, and it’ll help to make up for the four days without my regular customers.’

  They were a tall handsome couple, she, twenty-nine years of age, he thirty-five, but they were not popular. They exuded an air of superiority and arrogance, and the little exchange India had had with Audrey at the school entrance was typical of their relations with the other residents of the village. They had no friends locally, and didn’t socialise, deeming themselves of superior breeding to the local turnips who had lived there all or most of their lives, never having left to get a university degree, as they had done, and they did not differentiate for any newcomers either.

  Their aloofness alienated them, but as their main aim was to make a success of their twin businesses, they neither noticed nor cared. That part of their aloofness stemmed from the fact that Hartley suffered from a serious stammer, they were reluctant to admit.

  III

  In The Rectory, now that their daughter Dove was safely in school, Rev. Septimus (‘Child number seven – don’t ask!’ was hi
s usual response to enquiries about his name) and Ruth Lockwood were having a full and frank – in fact, frankly, loud – discussion about the change in the rules for admissions to the school.

  ‘I don’t care how you try to justify it, it’s going to ruin yet another one of the village schools with just a couple of classes – they’re dying out and will soon become extinct. And you want to admit children from other parishes? You know what it’s been like here, with all and sundry buying up the properties, and turning up at church for a couple of weeks, then expecting to get a place for their child in the school, as if it’s their right.’

  ‘Ruth, you have to understand that if it’s not opened up in some way, the school will close, and that’ll be even worse. We’ve got less than thirty pupils registered, and that’s covering ages five to eleven. There’s no way we can remain open if numbers don’t improve. I’ve told you, it’s been discussed with the school staff, the parent governors, and at Diocesan meetings and, if we want the school to survive at all, we have to be less narrow in the criteria of our admissions system.’

  ‘It’s awful enough as it is – all those pretentious women with their ghastly children’s names, making register sound like it’s for some mini-RADA. They only come here so that they can get the sort of education their children wouldn’t be exposed to if they went to an ordinary state school. They’re getting the good quality of a private education, without having to pay for a private school, and I think that’s cheating. If you want your child to go to a Church of England school, then you should be a practising Christian.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Ruth. What has the Christian religion got to do with anything in this country any more? Tell me that! Our beliefs and traditions have slowly been whittled away, to the point that virtually no child starting at a local authority school has the faintest idea what a Christmas carol is – the nearest they can guess is ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ by Slade.

  ‘Do you know what one woman said to me the other day? She said that the likes of us shouldn’t go about trying to ruin the fun of Christmas with all that religious clap-trap, and what was the point of it all anyway? I tried to point out to her that without the ‘Christ’ there would be no ‘-mas’, but she told me it quite upset her little grandchildren to have to be hauled off to the kiddies’ nativity service, and miss all the cartoons on the telly about Santa Claus and Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. At her age, she should have been setting an example, and I can tell you, it’s the closest I’ve ever come to giving an otherwise sweet, grey-haired old lady a ‘fourpenny one’ right on the nose.

  ‘And as for the Easter message – I absolutely give up. For most families now, it’s just about ‘bunny-wunnies’ – or that ghastly American Easter Bunny, I should say – cakes with little chicks on, and chocolate eggs.’

  ‘So that’s more reason than ever, then, to keep the intake just to those who live in the parish and attend church on a Sunday,’ shouted Ruth, not caring who could hear her.

  ‘Why can’t you see that the solution’s the complete opposite, woman? The more children we let in who haven’t been exposed to a Christian upbringing, the more children we get a chance to influence, and educate in the ways of a Christian life.’ Septimus’ voice was raised too now, and they were both red in the face, glaring at each other across the desk in his study.

  One corner of Ruth’s mouth twitched just a millimetre as she struggled to maintain her expression, but her husband noticed it, crossed his eyes at her, and poked out his tongue. ‘Race you upstairs!’ she challenged, shooting out of the study door and stamping up the staircases with all the grace of a pantomime horse. Bringing up the rear of this animal, rarely spotted outside of December and January, bounded Septimus. They may have been married for eight years, but the passion of their union was undiminished, and this argument was going the way of most arguments in their household – towards a very sweet resolution.

  Things were almost as sweet in the sitting room of number two Victoria and Albert Terrace, as Flo Atkins poured out tea from a bone china pot and offered chocolate biscuits to Saul Catchpole from number three, whom she had invited round for a ‘little visit’ this morning. She had been the cleaner at the school and he the caretaker for a number of years, and she felt, on the eve of the holidays, that it would be nice if they planned a couple of little outings together; something for her to look forward to over the next couple of weeks except for her own company. Her daughter was going to Tenerife for a fortnight, and her son worked in Manchester and said he couldn’t get away.

  ‘Drink up, dearie,’ she exhorted him, ‘and I’ll top the pot up with boiling water. And help yourself to another biscuit. Don’t want them going off now do we, duckie?’

  ‘Quack, quack!’ Saul whispered under his breath, but he helped himself to two more biscuits, and drained his teacup while Flo was in the kitchen dealing with the teapot. He was seventy-two to her sixty-six, and although they lived next door to each other now, that had only been since she was widowed six months ago, and they were gradually feeling their way as neighbours. He didn’t really know how he felt about her, but she’d certainly looked after herself, and it did banish the loneliness he had felt since his wife died five years ago. Any port in a storm, he reckoned, as long as there was safe harbour, and Flo didn’t look as if she would bite.

  In the old monastery gardens’ site, in a rather tatty caravan, a tiny elf of a woman was pegging out clothes on a dryer suspended from the bottom of one of the caravan windows. Her wavy hair was long, but sadly neglected, and the dark brown cascade down her back was marred by split ends and rats’ tails. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted her husband, taking his time coming back from the school run, and hailed him as he approached the pedestrian entrance to the site.

  ‘Where on earth have you been, Adrian? I need to get the bedding to the launderette in Market Darley, and you know I can’t handle that big car. I can’t drive anything without power steering, Milo’s school breaks up today for over two weeks, and there you are, away with the fairies, dawdling along the road as if you had all the time in the world.’

  ‘Well we do, don’t we? Neither of us has a job, or a hobby, or any voluntary work, or neighbours, or a social life, or anything at all, really, do we?’

  ‘What’s eating you now?’ asked Pippa, unable to ignore the signs that he was going to throw one of his moods, and her with so much to do.

  ‘Oh, I’ve just about had enough of all this. It’s not as if we need to live like a load of gypsies. We’ve both got perfectly respectable – no, well-off – families, who’d love us to give up this silly charade of yours and live a normal life with our son.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with this way of life, might I ask?’

  ‘It’s simply not us: we’re fakes! At the end of the school year I’m leaving this sardine can, which nearly froze me to death this winter, and I’m taking Milo back to civilisation. He shouldn’t have to grow up with his parents living hand-to-mouth like a couple of drop-outs, when there’s plenty of money in the bank, and he doesn’t have to. Say what you will, it’s going to happen whether you like it or not!’

  ‘Oh, good! I wondered how long it’d take to wear you down, and get you to act like a man instead of a quivering jelly.’

  ‘What do you mean? You don’t want to do this either?’

  ‘Of course not! I just wanted to see how far I could push you, to do something that was basically against your wishes. I wanted to be married to a man, not a mouse. Thank God you’ve stood up to me at last. Now, carry on like that, and we’ll be all right. But you’re right about seeing the academic year out. It’s better for Milo to complete his first year there, and it’ll be a lesson to your parents, not to forbid you to do anything. Really! At your age!’

  Adrian Snoddy was all of twenty-eight years old, his wife, two years his junior.

  IV

  Life was emerging in the two village pubs, diagonally opposite each other at the crossroads that marked the centre of the vi
llage.

  In the Temporary Sign, Robbie Greenslade was already on his computer, putting together what was to be the first pub quiz under his management, and, if it increased sales sufficiently, he hoped to make it a monthly event. Robbie always had an idea or two on the go, and this was his latest one.

  In the Ring o’ Bells, Ernie Darling was collecting the last of the glasses from the previous night, his thoughts already on his next task; clearing the ashtrays from the smoking shelter in the car park. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear that the car park was livelier than the pub some nights, and rued the day they had banned the habit on licensed premises. At least if his smoking patrons had still been allowed to indulge inside, it would have increased their drinking rate. As it was, they got chatting, and couldn’t be bothered to go in for another round for an age.

  His wife Margaret made her way unsteadily down the stairs, one hand on the bannister to keep her balance, the other covering the top of her head, as if she expected it to fall off. As indeed it felt it just might, after the amount of gins she’d downed the previous evening. This running a pub lark after taking early retirement might be all right at nine or ten in the evening, but at the same hours in the morning, it wasn’t so hot. She’d have to alternate with soft drinks for a night or two, until she was feeling back on form. ‘Ernie! Don’t crash those glasses around so noisily. My poor head feels like it’s going to burst,’ she pleaded.

  ‘Serves you right for filling your boots. You’re always the same when that old Catchpole feller is in. It looks like I might be having to keep my eye on you, when he’s about.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly, Ernie. More like me having to keep an eye on you when that Florence Atkins is around. I’ve seen you sniffing round her like a little dog. And you know damned well what’s wrong with me.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous, woman. Take some pain killers, get yourself a mug of strong black coffee, and then come back in here and help me to make this business a success. It’s the only way we’re going to make any real money for a properly-funded real retirement in a few years’ time. You’re going to have to pull yourself together and live with it.’