Inkier Than the Sword (The Falconer Files Book 3) Read online

  III

  In the trendier Fox and Hounds (lower lighting, no open log fire or horse-brasses) the other group of card players found themselves in an identical situation, as Buffy Sinden had not turned up to play. In the case of her absence, however, they had an explanation of sorts from Bryony Buckleigh, although it was not a very satisfactory one.

  ‘I did remind her earlier, but she didn’t sound too well, so I went round to see her. There’s just no way that she can be with us tonight, and we’ll just have to live with that.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her, then? Man trouble?’ called Roma Kerr from the rear of the room, then sniggered into her hand and winked at her husband Rodney.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so indiscreet as to disclose the details of someone’s illness.’ Here, Bryony gave a brief but pointed frown in the direction of Tilly Gifford, who must have understood the discreet implication, because she blushed, and blew her nose to cover her surprise and flushed countenance.

  Bryony cleared her throat and continued, ‘I can assure you all, however, that she is in no state to join us this evening, and we shall just have to manage, as we always do, when we are missing a player. Unless three of you fancy playing with an unwieldy fistful of cards, you’d better sort yourselves out into players and non-players for the first game, and let’s get this evening going before last orders, please, ladies and gentlemen.’

  Roma Kerr hastened away in search of a drink to calm herself down, after another furious exchange of insults with Rodney, and Amy and Malcolm Littlemore ( quelle surprise!) volunteered to join her, much to Bryony’s disgust. Amy was a bad player at best, but when she’d had a few she couldn’t even remember the rules of Black Bitch, and made a real shambles of any game she was involved in. Heaven help them if she came back at half-time determined to join in for the second half.

  Maybe when they took a five minute break between games to refresh glasses, she might be able to persuade her not to play at all tonight. After all, it wasn’t really the cards she was here for, was it? It was the convivial atmosphere and the demon drink, as anyone who knew her a little more than superficially understood. She must also ask about their somewhat injured appearance too, before the end of the evening. They certainly appeared as if they had been in the wars. Surmising that their appearance was probably the result of a drunken fall, she dismissed the subject from her mind, and picked up her first hand of cards.

  Perched on bar stools in the only bar (ah, modernisation!), Amy, Malcolm and Tilly got down to some dirt digging, each in his or her own inimitable way. Malcolm was the most direct of the three. ‘What do yer think ’as ’appened to the old Bicycle tonight, then? ’Ot date? ’Angover? Shortness of breath?’ This last amused him so much, that he indulged in a little chuckle before taking another enthusiastic slug from what was already his second pint.

  ‘Don’t be so ’orrible, Malc. Maybe she’s really ill. You’ve no idea what she said to Bryony, so why speculate?’

  ‘She’s probably got ’erself a dose of the clap,’ he retorted, making himself cough with the speed with which he swallowed his mouthful of beer. ‘What d’yer reckon, Tilly? You work down the doctor’s don’t yer? She been in there for a dose of penicillin?’

  Instead of her usual gushing response to the invitation to indulge in a little character assassination and gossip, Tilly Gifford positively bridled, fixed Malcolm with a beady eye, and exclaimed. ‘How on earth should I know? And you know that anything I learn at the surgery is not to be bandied about in general conversation. Anything like that is covered by medical confidentiality, and I should be putting my job in jeopardy if I treated it as anything else!’

  ‘’Old yer ’orses, Till! I was only askin’. No need to bite me bleedin’ ’ead off, is there?’

  ‘Sorry, Malc. Just a bit jumpy tonight, that’s all. Must be the weather. And anyway, what about you two? You look like you’ve both gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson and come off the worse for it. Going in for a bit of wife-bashing are you, Malc? I should watch him, Amy. If he tries it again, I should go for him with the poker.’

  Made bold with a combination of strong analgesics and alcohol – they’d had a few before they went out, of course – Malcolm, minus his rather alarming bandage of the day before, and sporting only a small plaster now over his stiches, commented, ‘Well, you and everyone else would know all the details by now, if we’d sought treatment via the surgery. Your sticky beak would’ve been covered in tasty little morsels about how we got like this, wouldn’t it? Gawd! My ribs don’t ’alf ’urt. I fink I’m gonna need a few more nippie-sweeties before I’ll be able to get any kip ternight!’

  ‘You mind yer own business, you gossipin’ old witch,’ Amy cut in, from behind her dark glasses, in guilty defence. ‘What you ’aven’t talked about, that’s gone on down that doctor’s surgery, is nobody’s business. And now you’re playin’ the innocent and trying to pry into me and Malc’s personal business. Why don’t yer wind yer neck in and keep yer great big neb out of other people’s business for a change?’

  ‘All right, all right, Amy. Sorry I spoke, I’m sure!’

  ‘And why did Bryony look in your direction when she was talkin’ about Buffy? If that wasn’t an accusation, I don’t know what is!’

  ‘How dare you! I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.’ Tilly Gifford had got a bit more than she bargained for when she had ordered a double gin and tonic, and sat at the bar for a nice chat with a couple whose company she usually enjoyed. ‘I’m not staying here to be insulted like that!’

  ‘Where d’yer usually go then, love?’ called Malcolm towards her retreating back as she grabbed her coat from the coat rack and left the pub. They finished their drinks in silence and waited for the first game to be over, although neither of them felt like playing cards any more.

  IV

  In the saloon bar of the comfortably old-fashioned Ox and Plough, a fine fire crackled in the over-sized grate and, at a table just to the right of it, sat Hermione, Vernon Warlock, and Charles Rainbird. They had volunteered to sit-out for the first round, their situation being identical to the one at the Fox and Hounds.

  ‘I’ve nearly finished my current little offering, and, as we’re surplus to requirements at the moment, I wonder if you had any teensy weensy little idealets for what I could get my teeth into next?’ Hermione asked with an innocent expression.

  ‘Nice one, Hermione, but you must be joking. If I had even an inkling of an idea, I’d lock it away in my safe, to keep it away from you. You’re a shameless baggage who has grown worse over the years,’ Vernon stated with somewhat more vehemence than seemed necessary in the circumstances.

  ‘What?’ Charles Rainbird hadn’t been listening, and had just tuned in to the conversation as Vernon had uttered his final sentence. ‘Shameless baggage? Hermione? I’d trust that woman with my life, Warlock. Utterly trustworthy, and of impeccable character.’

  ‘Bollocks!’ retorted Vernon, as if that was an end to the subject, and lifted his glass up in offering to his companions. ‘Anyone fancy another one? I’m in the chair.’

  ‘Oh, I suppose so,’ said Hermione a little ungratefully, ‘but I was so enjoying listening to you two squabble over me.’

  ‘Squabble over you?’ queried Vernon, and with a cheeky half-grin, made his way over to the bar to place their order. ‘I should coco!’

  In his absence, Hermione leaned over the table and asked Charles in a hushed voice, ‘Have you any idea where Gabriel’s got to tonight?’

  ‘How dare you, Hermione. You promised you’d never utter a word on the subject again, and yet whenever you identify an opportunity, you always say something. Why can’t you just leave the subject alone as you promised you would do?’

  ‘I’m not bringing up any subject. Anyway, you’re a bit touchy tonight, aren’t you? I only asked if you had any idea where he was. Sounds like a guilty conscience to me!’

  ‘Will you leave it alone, woman! I’ve got enough to worry about witho
ut you inventing things to torture me with.’ And on that cryptic comment, he snapped his mouth shut, rather like a turtle’s, and turned his gaze away from her and towards the flames of the fire.

  At that point Vernon arrived back at the table with a tray laden with glasses and packets of crisps. ‘Here we go, me hearties!’ he carolled.

  ‘Oh, sod off!’ Charles exploded at him, breaking his reverie and returning to his recent acid mood. ‘I’m going home!’

  As the pub door closed behind him, Vernon put the tray on the table and started to offload its contents. ‘What’s eating him?’ he asked, as he shared Charles’ gin and tonic between their two glasses.

  ‘Haven’t a clue!’ answered Hermione, innocently and untruthfully. ‘Now, Vernon, do you know why young Pryor hasn’t turned up tonight?’

  ‘Absolutely no idea, but I don’t like to see you rag Charles so.’ Vernon replied.

  ‘Oh, poo! Charlie-boy shouldn’t be such a shrinking little violet. And I really did ring Gabriel, you know,’ she continued. ‘I can’t think why he didn’t have the courtesy, at least, to ring me back, or even to let me know in advance, if he was tied up with something else.

  ‘Now, I’m just going to have this little drink, and then go through to get my quota of games. Wouldn’t do for me to slide down the league, as it was me that set it up, now would it, Vernon my dearest?’

  And she was not joking, as the cards club did, indeed, keep scores and a league table. This had been Hermione’s idea when the actual playing had palled with the bridge, and since they had commenced their current and horribly devious game, Craig Crawford the accountant had kept the scores.

  At the end of the playing year – 1st June, so that they could fit in their holidays, traditionally taken in the summer months by all the members – the figures were totalled, and a Victorian silver-plated cup was presented to the winner (donated by Hermione!), to be kept by them until 1st June the following year. Most of the players took their cards seriously, and considered that it must have been something extremely galling that evening for Charles to have walked out like that, denying himself the opportunity to score when it was his turn to play.

  Chapter Five

  Spades Are Trumps

  Wednesday 6th January

  I

  A number of households received spiteful poison pen letters the next morning, two of whom were Vernon Warlock and Charles Rainbird and, had they but known it at the time, the letters were of very similar wording.

  Charles, always an early riser, had picked his post up almost before it had hit the floor, and whisked it off to the kitchen, to open it with his breakfast.

  Q. What do you call a businessman with more than one set of books?

  A. About to be arrested. Be sure your sins will find you out, as I have, and you will pay, he read, and whistled in surprise and amusement. Somebody thought they were a right little know-it-all, didn’t they? Well, someone was about to find out that his displeasure was not something to be summoned lightly. He would be having more than a word about this missive.

  At the other end of Dairy Lane, in Vine Cottage, Vernon Warlock wandered into his hall at a little after nine-thirty to collect his post, even though he was supposed to open the shop at that exact hour. ‘What on earth was this?’ he thought as he glanced at the envelope with the address formed from cut-out letters. Was it some new form of advertising, trying to part hard-working folk from their money in yet another way?

  The envelope’s contents soon put a stop to such thoughts as he read:

  Q. What do you call a fencer of stolen antiquarian books?

  A. A convict doing a stretch. Beware the wrath of the law.

  ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed out loud. ‘Who on earth can have sent this?’

  II

  Hilda Pounce, known locally as Potty Pounce purely because her antecedents had attended the Strict and Particular Baptist Chapel in the village, and were particularly rabid about the somewhat peculiar rituals it indulged in, left her home in Prince Albert Terrace, the last of the village housing on the Market Darley Road, and cycled carefully northwards, over the crossroads that contained the commercial heart of the community, then turned right into Dairy Lane, to make a shortcut to the library to return her books.

  The snow, threatened the night before, hadn’t materialised, but the going was treacherous, and there was little tread left on the tyres of her old bicycle. Still, she’d promised Miss Grayling (my lady author, as she thought of her employer) that she’d have a thorough turn out in the kitchen this morning, then, after lunch she’d have to pop into Barleycorn Crescent and give old slimy Pryor a quick once-over. She was due to clean for him on New Year’s Day, but the promise of a couple of hours at double time clearing up at the pubs had been a more attractive proposition, and she had changed her arrangements accordingly.

  When she handed her books in at the library, she was surprised when Patience Buttery, one of the library assistants, announced that they were overdue by a day, and she would have to pay a ten pence fine on each book.

  ‘How can they be overdue? I know when I got them out, and I marked it in my diary to bring them back today.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Pounce, but if you’d care to look here, and here, you can see that the date for return is the fifth of January.’

  ‘But it is the fifth!’ Hilda almost shouted.

  ‘I’m very much afraid you’re mistaken. Today’s the sixth, isn’t it Noah?’ she called to her husband who also worked there, and was preparing to return a trolley-load of returned books to their proper places on the shelves.

  ‘That’s right. It’s the sixth. So easy to lose track of what day it is, when there are so many Bank Holidays, isn’t it, Mrs Pounce?’ he called over cheerfully, before returning to steering his chariot of knowledge and entertainment.

  Hilda Pounce merely stood with her mouth open, gaping after him. How could it be the sixth? She was so sure of herself that she even glanced over at a copy of the Times that had been left carelessly across the returns counter. It confirmed her worst fears. Today was the sixth, and she must pay a fine for the late return of her library books, something that had never happened before, in her narrow and convention-bound world.

  Reaching into her grubby string bag, she extracted her purse and carefully counted out the pennies into Patience’s hand.

  A few minutes later, Hilda parked her bicycle at the side of The Spinney and let herself in through the back door, her face still grim at the thought of her confusion over the date, went to the kitchen cupboard that held her cleaning materials and surveyed the state of the kitchen, opening cupboard doors and drawers as she assessed her task for that morning.

  ‘Coo-ee, Hilda dear. Is that you?’ A voice trilled from the direction of the little room that Hermione referred to as her ‘author-torium’, and Hilda put down a nest of dusters she was holding, and set off to see what her employer Miss Grayling wanted.

  ‘Hello, my dear. I thought I heard you come in. Happy New Year to you, and I hope you had a lovely Christmas. Now,’ she continued, not allowing her cleaning lady to get a word in edgeways, so determined was she to state her own plan for that good woman’s toil, this morning.

  ‘I know we decided that you could turn out the kitchen, for I really can’t find anything at all these days. Oh, I know it’s my own fault for not putting things back where they belong.’ Once more she ignored the opening of Hilda’s mouth to make a comment. ‘And I’m afraid I’m just as careless with things that go into sideboards and drawers, so I wondered, when you’ve finished in the kitchen, and I’m sure it won’t take you long, as you’re so terribly efficient, if you’d just whizz through the sideboards in the drawing room and the dining room – not in here, of course, because it may look very muddly to you, but I know exactly where every scrap of paper is, and what’s on it.

  ‘Now, I won’t keep you from your work, because that’s very naughty of me, but if you could just do me a cafetière of coffee, and bring it in here
when it’s ready, I’ll let you get on. Thank you so much, Hilda, my dear.’

  Hilda Pounce didn’t even try opening her mouth this time, but turned her steps back to the kitchen where she put the kettle on, ground a sufficient amount of Hermione’s favourite blend of beans, and laid a tray ready to take in when the water was hot. Usually she enjoyed her work here, feeling honoured that she worked for a famous writer, but today hadn’t started to the expected pattern. And now she’d been lumbered with the sideboards, as well as the kitchen: there were two of these in the drawing room, and four in the dining room – two pairs along the wall that flanked the long mahogany table – and she winced as she remembered the jumbled mess that inhabited each one. She’d never get all that finished in one morning, and she still had Mr Pryor’s place to go through this afternoon.

  Walking carefully, so that she didn’t slop any milk from the small jug, she made her way down the hall, two cups and saucers on the tray, recalling with pleasure that Miss Grayling usually invited her to join her for morning coffee and a nice chat – such a kind and civilised lady. Momentarily forgetting her ire at the sideboards, she knocked and entered the holy of holies, where Hermione composed her long-winded Victorian family sagas, only to find her employer gathering up keys, gloves, and handbag, in preparation for going out.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Hilda, but I completely forgot that I promised to pop over to Spinning Wheel Cottage for coffee this morning. Dimity made a point of asking me last night, but I can hardly keep track of the days, when there are all these ghastly Bank Holidays, and people taking days in lieu, and everywhere closing down for two weeks at Christmas. I’m so sorry we can’t have our usual lovely chat, but c’est la vie, eh? C’est la vie. If I’m not back before you finish, I’ll see you on Friday at the usual time. Toodle-oo! Pip pip!’

  Hilda Pounce’s day was going to wrack and ruin, and yet she had not the slightest inkling that the worst was yet to come.

  III