Music to Die For (The Falconer Files Book 6) Read online

  ‘Just let it all go over your head. Unless he’s speaking to me personally, I tune him out, and think of something else. Why don’t you do the same?’

  ‘I can’t! I can’t! I just can’t! He’s so damned superior that he makes me feel like a five-year-old who’s not done his homework.’

  ‘So, have you been practising, then? To make Sir happy?’

  ‘Well, no, actually, I haven’t. Every time I look at the music case, I can feel my temper rising, and I don’t want to play a note, because it’ll make me think of him again, and then I just get so full of rage. Who does he think he is?’

  ‘A little man, with nothing else in his life but making other people’s a misery.’

  ‘You’re right! I’ve got to get a grip, otherwise I’ll just pack the whole thing in, and there’s nothing else around here that I enjoy so much.’

  ‘You can’t do that! We need you! I need you! Who am I going to sit with if you bugger off? And you’re right about Dashwood. I could have wrung his scrawny neck for him last night. It’s just as well we went off to old Myles’s, or there might have been murder committed, and that wouldn’t be good for the village’s reputation, now would it?’

  ‘Well, I’ll come tomorrow, because it’s not a proper practice, but I’m not coming next Friday,’ Lester announced somewhat aggressively.

  ‘Sulking or hiding?’ Harold asked, genuinely curious.

  ‘Neither,’ Lester replied. ‘It’s business, actually. I have a prior engagement.’

  ‘Ooh, prior engagement. Mr Hoity-Toity, are you, now?’ Harold was in just the mood to pull the younger man’s leg.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Harold. I’ve just got something else on, and I can’t make it. It’s not because of him, because if it’d been at Myles’s, I still wouldn’t have been able to make it. You know I have to miss a session now and again, because of work. It just can’t be helped, but this time, I’m really glad to have an excuse not to go.’

  ‘Well, at least you won’t have to listen to Myles going on and on about his time in the RAF,’ comforted Harold. ‘I found out that he only spent three years in it. From the way he talks, you’d think he’d been a career man. Sometimes it makes me sick! Me, I spent my whole life in the army – never got anywhere, because I was always getting into scrapes and getting busted down whenever I got promotion, but I never talk about it. Him, he’s all talk and no ‘do’. You’d think he’d joined as a beardless boy and only recently retired, the way he goes on about it all the time.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Lester agreed. ‘It does get a bit much sometimes, but I always take that as a signal for another glass of wine. It might mean that I drink rather too much, but it gives me that relaxed feeling, where I can just let it all go over my head.’

  ‘Well, that’s exactly what you should do with our rather less than charming MD.’

  ‘You’re quite right there. He just seems to be able to get to me. I need to develop a thicker skin, before I have to spend any more time in his unpleasant company – tomorrow excepted. Do you want a refill in there?’

  ‘Good lad!’ said Harold, handing over his again empty glass.

  III

  The take-away food shop on the High Street always put a few battered metal tables and chairs on the pavement outside during the good weather in the summer, and served teas, coffees, cold drinks, and slices of shop-bought cake, enlivened by a squirt of artificial cream on the top to give it a more home-made look.

  Myrtle Midwynter sat in one of these chairs now, a cup of frothy coffee and a plate with a half-eaten slice of Battenberg cake on the table in front of her, completely lost in thought. Myles had decided that he would do the decent thing, and was practising his clarinet with the sort of gusto that had driven her out of the house to seek some peace and quiet.

  So completely abstracted was she that she failed to notice a familiar face approaching, and only became aware that she was about to get company when a voice called, ‘Coo-ee, Myrtle. Order me a coffee, will you?’

  Damn and blast it! It was Vanessa Palfreyman: the last person she wanted to see or talk to at the moment, but she’d have to invite her to sit down, and try to discourage her from talking about the one subject that she considered absolutely and undisputedly closed.

  ‘I’ll just go in and order another one for myself, as well. This one’s gone cold,’ she answered, and then swore under her breath. Why did she have to indicate that she was going to linger. She could just have drained her cup, and said she was in a hurry, and had to be somewhere else. See where good manners got you, these days? Up shit creek without a paddle, that’s where they got you.

  Returning to the table, she found Vanessa sitting there with a look of determination on her face, which was slightly marred by the fact that she kept having to hold a handkerchief to her nose, into which to sneeze. Myrtle’s heart sank when the first words the other woman uttered were, ‘Why won’t you come hiking this year? We’ve always done it. You’ve had a good time, haven’t you? Why stop now?’

  ‘Because I simply don’t want to do it anymore, Vanessa, and that’s the end of the matter, as far as I’m concerned.’ Be firm; that was the way to handle things.

  ‘But why? I don’t understand. Have I done something, or said something, to upset you? If I have, I’m sorry, and I’ll do anything to put it right.’

  ‘It’s nothing like that, Vanessa. I just don’t want to do it anymore, and that’s that. Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t start crying,’ Myrtle said, in an exasperated voice. ‘There’ll be other people that will want to go hiking with you, and we’ll still see each other at band practice.’

  ‘But that’s not the same, and you know it. Oh, what am I going to do?’ she wailed into her handkerchief.

  At that point Myrtle lost her rag, and snapped, ‘You’re going to start acting like a grown-up, and you’re going to accept my decision without any of these stupid histrionics, and if I hear that you’ve been going around crying on anyone else’s shoulder, you’ll have me to reckon with. Now finish your coffee and leave me alone. I’m going home now, and I don’t expect to be disturbed again today. Do I make myself clear? Now, go home and get some practice in on that double bass of yours. The way that man went on last night, anyone listening would’ve thought we were all Grade One, and getting a good dressing down from our teacher.’

  ‘You’re right, Myrtle,’ replied Vanessa, blowing her noise in a very noisy fashion. ‘He made me feel completely incompetent, and everyone else, as I remember it. I could’ve throttled him at the time. I’m glad we went back to yours for a good old bitch. It made me feel much better. Thanks. And I will try to find someone else to come hiking with me,’ this last uttered in a voice without a shred of hope in it.

  ‘That’s the ticket,’ replied Myrtle, relieved that she had managed to change the subject. ‘See you tomorrow morning, after service.’

  ‘You know I can’t attend the service, don’t you? That vicar doesn’t like me, and I’m not going there to be glared at all the way through the sermon.’

  ‘Don’t be so sensitive, Vanessa. Either grow a thicker skin, or get a life. Or both!’ on which prickly advice, Myrtle turned her back, and headed home to The Grange, her craving for peace and quiet totally unfulfilled.

  When Myrtle arrived back at The Grange, Myles was, unusually for him, wearing a pair of shorts and sitting on a chair in the kitchen. ‘Hey!’ she called, ‘You’ve got your togs on.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got one tog on, to be accurate,’ he retorted, ‘I’ve been waiting for you, because I want to talk about something, and putting the shorts on sort of added dignity to the fact that I wanted to ask you something quite serious.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Myrtle, pulling out a wheel-backed chair and sitting down opposite him.

  ‘You know what we’ve been discussing lately?’

  ‘Of course I do. How could I not?’

  ‘Well, I just wanted to make sure that you’re absolutely sure you want to go a
head with it. I mean, it’s a huge step to take, and I don’t want you feeling pressurised into it.’

  ‘It was my idea, if you think back. And no, it’s what I want to do, whatever the consequences.’

  ‘And you’re absolutely positive? Once we do it, there’s no going back.’

  ‘I couldn’t be more positive. Now, stop looking all serious, and let’s take a jug of Pimm’s and lemonade out on the lawn, and have a little sit in this glorious weather. It just seems to be getting hotter by the day. I know it’s summer and all that, but it is England, too, and hot weather and England don’t often go together. Come on! Off with those serious shorts, and let’s get ourselves outside again.’

  IV

  In the back garden of 3 Columbine Cottages, which backed on to the large grounds of The Grange, sat three figures, sipping (maybe even gulping a little, at times) glasses of sangria. The garden was Gayle Potten’s, and her guests were Wendy Burnett (minus her oboe for once) and Geraldine Warwick (who may have had her piccolo concealed in her handbag, it was so small), and was there reluctantly, as she and Gayle were not exactly bosom buddies.

  Gayle had phoned them up that morning, and suggested that, as the woodwind section, they should have a small council of war. ‘Why didn’t you ask Myles to come round?’ asked Wendy Burnett, who knew a little more about Myles than most people in Swinbury Abbot, and wanted to see how Gayle would react.

  ‘Because I thought he might strip off as soon as he got into the shelter of the garden. You know what he’s like, and I didn’t want to spend all afternoon being confronted with his dangling “charlie,” answered Gayle truthfully.

  ‘Harold and I asked him and Myrtle round for supper one evening, and as soon as he got through the back door, he was pulling off his tee-shirt, and by the time we got to the table, he was buck naked. It quite put me off my cannelloni.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind,’ commented Wendy Burnett, a sort of dreamy look coming over her rather pointy features.

  ‘Forget it, sister,’ Geraldine Warwick advised. ‘Those two are set for life. I don’t fancy your chances there at all.’

  ‘You never know,’ Gayle opined. ‘If you’ve got a couple of tricks up your sleeve, seduction-wise, you just might pull it off.’

  ‘So long as you don’t turn them too fast,’ added Geraldine Warwick, a bitchy smile on her face as she looked over at the flautist.

  Returning, not exactly to the same subject, but to the same area of interest, Wendy asked Gayle, ‘Why don’t you and Harold move in together? He only lives a few yards away, in Honeysuckle Terrace. It would a lot cheaper to have just one household to run.’

  ‘It would,’ answered Gayle, with a little smile, ‘But I like my own bed at night, and I have no intentions of sharing it again. I don’t mind spending the odd night at his, or him staying over here now and again, but nothing else. Besides, I’ve got my garden to think of. His is just grass – not a shrub, or a tree, or a flower in sight. His garden reflects the sort of life he’s lived. Me, I like colour and variety, so I’m staying put here for the foreseeable future, and that’s definite.’

  And in any case, she thought, Harold was OK for marking time with, but if a better offer came along, she might just take it. Myles, for example, was rather yummy, and she did so like men with moustaches.

  ‘Anyway, that’s not why we three have met again, and not in thunder, lightning, or in rain.’ She used a cracked and high-pitched voice for this sentence; a sop to the play from which she had adapted the words. ‘We’re here to discuss what the hell we’re going to do about our darling band. It’s been absolute ruined by that man, and I, for one, have had enough of it. What do you two suggest?’

  ‘Take out a contract on him,’ suggested Geraldine Warwick, with a smile. ‘We could get a hit-man – I’ve got all of three pounds and twenty-seven pence in my purse, right this minute, that I’m willing to donate.’

  ‘I don’t think that’d get us very much,’ commented Wendy Burnett, glumly. ‘I think we’re just going to have to do what Myles suggested last night, and put up with the miserable bastard until after the concert. Then we can tell him to sling his hook.’

  ‘Perhaps we could rig up the organ to electrocute him at tomorrow morning’s service? Did you hear that the vicar had given Edmund the elbow as organist?’

  ‘Yes. It’s all over the village grapevine, and don’t be an ass, Geraldine. With our luck, the old sod would call in sick, and then someone else would get the benefit of God knows how many volts through their body.’ In a more practical vein, Gayle briefly hinted at a boycott of rehearsals, but that was a non-starter, as they really did need to improve, and improve considerably, before their performance in the church.

  ‘We’ll just have to wait it out. It’s not that long, now. Just grit your teeth, and try to ignore what he says,’ was her final bit of advice. ‘Tell the others to hang on in there, and if Cameron McKnight throws a hissy fit, offer to grit his teeth for him – they’re false, anyway, so at least we could save him the trouble.’

  This raised a small titter and, as Gayle refilled their glasses, ice tinkling in the jug, drops of condensation dripping off it, as it was tipped, to pour the refreshing liquid, they sat back in their chairs to enjoy the sunshine and put all thoughts of Campbell Dashwood out of their heads, on this lovely, lovely afternoon.

  V

  In the back garden of The Limes, on the Stoney Cross Road, Gwendolyn Radcliffe, who could be a martyr to her arthritis, was taking advantage of the sun warming her bones and easing the pain, and weeding a border in front of the trees that stood at the end of the garden. She had just managed to remove what she hoped was every trace of the roots of a particularly stubborn dandelion, when she heard a car draw into her drive, and a car door slam.

  She was still struggling to her feet, when Cameron McKnight marched round the side of the house, and stood still for a moment, staring at her belligerently. ‘What do you want?’ she asked, equally confrontational.

  ‘I want you to refuse to take the part of first violin. You know I’m a better player, and I’ve been ‘first’ ever since we started this band.’

  ‘I shan’t! You weave about, and flourish your bow like some virtuoso player, but your tuning’s rotten, so it is. I’ll do a much more tuneful job as ‘first’, and you know it,’ she retorted.

  ‘I know no such thing!’ he replied, in challenge. ‘You haven’t got the first idea about vibrato, which really gives the music soul.’

  ‘And you do so much of it it’s hard to tell exactly which note you’re supposed to be playing. The composers would turn in their graves if they heard the wibbly-wobbly mess you made of their melodies.’

  ‘You poisonous old bag! I do not play out of tune!’

  ‘Yes, you do!’

  At this point, both of them stopped and looked at one another, and fell silent.

  After a short while, Cameron spoke again, only in more reasonable tones. ‘You know who’s put us at each other’s throats, don’t you? It’s that pill, Dashwood. We’ve always got on perfectly well before.’

  Seeing her face, he corrected this by adding, ‘Well, most of the time. But we’ve never been at daggers drawn in the past, have we?’

  ‘No, Cameron, but I still want my turn at ‘first’,’ Gwendolyn stated adamantly.

  ‘And you shall have it, but you’ll find the part much more difficult than ‘second’, and I don’t think you’ll be able to cope.’

  ‘We’ll just have to find that out, won’t we, eh?’

  ‘Fair enough, and if you’re anything like me, you’re probably still smarting from the insults that old bugger rained on us last night.’

  ‘Too right, I am! What a stinker that man is! And could he do any better? I doubt it. I phoned Fern Bailey this morning, and she was in tears, the poor girl, and all because of what he said to her last night. But we’ll not let him unsettle us, will we? Truce?’

  ‘Truce, you stubborn old besom.’

  ‘Do
you fancy coming inside for a cup of tea?’

  ‘I’d love to. And we can have another good bitch about our so-called Musical Director.’

  ‘Delighted! Follow me,’ she instructed, and made her way slowly towards the back door. They’d all been together too long to squabble like this. Really! That horrible man was destroying the camaraderie that it had taken a decade to build, and it just wasn’t on.

  VI

  Campbell Dashwood sat on the very edge of an armchair in the vicar’s study, sipping tea daintily from a china cup, his little finger stretched out as far as it would go, as a demonstration of his refinement in such matters.

  ‘They really are an awful shambles, Vicar. If you hadn’t asked me to intervene, I doubt whether there would have been much of a concert, if there was any concert at all.’

  ‘They’ve always muddled through in the past,’ replied Rev. Church, slightly defensively. ‘I had no idea thing were in such a bad way. I mean, we’ve always collected goodly sums for the Air Ambulance, and there’s been no sign of the donations flagging.’

  ‘That’s Christmas, Vicar, if you’ll excuse me pointing out the obvious. People are more generous at Christmas, and will give to a good cause just because the season makes them feel more generous. Put the same quality of music before them at the end of August, and you’ll have a riot on your hands, I can assure you.’

  ‘Oh dear, so it’s serious, then?’ Rev. Church put down his cup and saucer and stared worriedly at the little man sitting on the other side of his desk.

  ‘Very serious. Did you ever go to one of their so-called band practices?’

  ‘No, Mr Dashwood – er, Campbell. I usually take a confirmation class on a Friday evening, and it doesn’t finish until half past eight. That was why we called round at the time we did the other Friday. I was only just free, and available for our visit.’

  ‘Did you not notice how much alcohol was being consumed?’

  ‘Not really,’ replied the vicar, blushing as he remembered his own glass of wine, that had been thoughtfully put on a small table for him. ‘Do you not approve of alcohol?’