The Bells of Little Woodford

by Catherine Jones

  Also by Catherine Jones, writing as Fiona Field

  Soldiers’ Wives

  Soldiers’ Daughters

  Civvy Street

  Little Woodford: The Secrets of a Small Town

  THE BELLS OF LITTLE WOODFORD

  Catherine Jones

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the UK in 2019 by Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Catherine Jones, 2019

  The moral right of Catherine Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781784979829

  ISBN (E): 9781784979812

  Typeset by Divaddict Publishing Solutions Ltd.

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  To Ian, who still hasn’t told me to go and

  get a proper job.

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Also by Catherine Jones, writing as Fiona Field

  Welcome Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Acknowledgements

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  On the first Sunday in September Heather Simmonds, the vicar’s wife, headed down the path from her home and towards the church for matins. The sky above the squat Norman church tower was speedwell blue, dotted with a flock of puffy clouds. The leaves on the trees in the churchyard had lost the vibrant shade of green of a couple of months earlier and now some had a distinctly yellow tinge. Not long till autumn sets in, thought Heather. The air was filled with the joyous sound of the ring of six bells calling the townsfolk to prayer. Bing-bong-bing-bong-bing-dong, bing-bong-bing-bong-bing-dong, as the bells rang down the scale from the treble to the tenor again and again. Every few minutes the order of notes changed – the ringers weaving them into intricate patterns like a tweed fabric; only a limited number of colours to work with but producing a beautiful finished product nonetheless. Heather stopped beside an ancient yew to enjoy the sight and sound.

  ‘Glorious, isn’t it?’ It was her best friend, Olivia Laithwaite, who, as always, was immaculately turned out in a crisply ironed blouse, blazer and smart pleated skirt.

  Beside her Heather felt a tad dowdy, dressed as she was in an elderly frock and distinctly threadbare cardy, but it was the best she could do given Brian’s income. She ignored her feelings and said, cheerily, ‘Makes you glad to be alive.’

  Olivia smiled and nodded. ‘But we can’t stand out here all day.’ She glanced at the church clock on the tower. ‘Come on, Brian will want to start the service shortly.’

  The two women, not wishing to keep Heather’s husband waiting, headed for the porch and entered the church. Above them, up in the bell chamber, the six ringers were also keeping an eye on the time. In a couple of minutes five of them would need to cease pulling the bell ropes and leave the treble bell tolling on its own – the minute bell; the warning to any latecomers to get a move on.

  The bell-ringers were a good team although the ringer of the number three bell, a young girl called Sarah Hitchins, was the newest recruit. She was the leader of the local Girl Guides and had brought them on a visit to the bell tower a year previously. She’d been so enthralled by the bells she’d signed up there and then to learn the ancient art of change-ringing. She tugged on the bell rope in her turn but as her bell swung there was an almighty crack from somewhere above her head and the rope, with her still gripping it, clattered and rattled uncontrollably upwards through the ceiling. Sarah shrieked in shock and fear as she was lifted clean off her feet.

  ‘Let go!’ yelled Pete the bell captain and steeple keeper. The tail of her rope thrashed around, hitting two other of the ringers, and then Sarah plummeted over a dozen feet to the floor and landed in a heap. The bells fell silent except for hers which clanged wildly on, until it ran out of momentum.

  As the ringers gathered round the motionless body on the floorboards and Pete rang 999 there came the sound of footsteps up the twisting stone steps from the body of the church. Heather, followed closely by Olivia, appeared in the doorway.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked as she gazed at the white and shocked faces of the ringers. ‘Is Sarah OK?’ Heather ran across to the casualty and knelt beside her, feeling for a pulse.

  ‘The ambulance is on its way,’ Pete told her.

  ‘Well, she’s alive,’ said Heather. ‘Out cold but alive.’ She gazed up at the bell captain. ‘What happened?’ she repeated.

  ‘The stay snapped,’ said Pete. ‘It happens, it’s rare but it happens, but I’ve never seen a ringer injured like this. I think she must have pulled too hard, newbies do that, and she didn’t have the experience to let go. Without the stay there’s nothing to stop the bell carrying on turning full circle, again and again, wrapping the rope around the wheel. She got lifted clean off her feet.’

  Heather transferred her gaze to look up at the ceiling of the bell chamber and at the multicoloured sally of Sarah’s rope, now filling the hole that guided it into the belfry. She looked back at Sarah. ‘Poor kid. How terrifying.’

  In the distance they could hear the wailing ululation of an approaching emergency vehicle. Sarah groaned and her eyelids fluttered.

  ‘Lie still,’ said Heather, patting her hand. ‘You’re going to be OK. Help is coming.’ She turned to Olivia. ‘It might be an idea to tell Brian – or anyone for that matter – to meet the ambulance and show them how to get up here.’

&nbs
p; ‘Of course.’ Olivia rushed off.

  Sarah groaned again and opened her eyes properly. Tears slid down her temples and into her hair. ‘It hurts,’ she whimpered.

  ‘What does?’ asked Heather gently.

  ‘Everything. My back, my legs.’

  Heather looked at Sarah’s legs which were encased in jeans and saw her left ankle was at a hideous angle and blood was seeping into the denim covering her right shin. Heather was pretty certain that Sarah’s ankle was broken and she’d put good money on a compound fracture of her right tibia too. But even more worrying was the matter of Sarah’s back. And good luck to the ambulance men who would have to find a way of getting her, immobilised, down the tower steps.

  When the ambulance crew arrived Heather and Olivia rejoined the congregation which was buzzing with curiosity as to what had happened.

  ‘How bad is it?’ asked Brian who was waiting at the bottom of the steps.

  Heather shook her head. ‘Not great. Definitely one broken leg, possibly both of them are but her back hurts – that’s the really worrying thing. Pete said she fell quite a distance.’

  Brian ran his fingers through his sparse grey hair and made his fringe stand on end like Tintin’s quiff. ‘I think, under the circumstances, we might abandon matins. Maybe just all of us join together and say a prayer for poor Sarah and suggest that everyone comes back for evensong…’ He looked at his wife. ‘What do you think?’

  Heather nodded. ‘I think that sounds like a very excellent plan.’

  *

  The next day, another of the town’s residents, Bex Millar, stood in the primary school playground and watched her two young boys, Lewis and Alfie, hare around, like overexcited puppies, as they greeted friends they hadn’t seen during the long summer break. What a difference, she thought, from the start of the previous term when they’d just moved to Little Woodford and they’d been new and shy. She wondered how her sixteen-year-old stepdaughter, Megan, was getting on at the comprehensive at the other end of town. Hopefully, now the class bully had been put in her place, Megan would slot back in with the same ease her half-brothers seemed to be displaying – only possibly with less shrieking and running. But Bex was reasonably confident Megan would be OK. When her alarm had gone off that morning and she’d pottered up to Megan’s bedroom in the attic she’d found her stepdaughter already awake and showered.

  ‘Gosh,’ she’d said. ‘You’re keen.’

  Megan had nodded. ‘Don’t get me wrong, the holidays were lovely, especially Cyprus, but I’m looking forward to seeing all my friends.’

  ‘Good. And Cyprus was grand, wasn’t it.’ It had been… for the kids. They’d loved staying with their paternal grandparents but Bex always felt as if Granny Helen and Grandpa Phil were watching her, mistrusting her, waiting for her to mess up and prove them right that their son’s second wife was a gold-digger who’d only married him for a cushy life. Bex sighed. She was sure they wished that it had been her that had gone under a truck and not their son and that they only tolerated her because she’d produced Lewis and Alfie. She was certain that once all the children were adults, Helen and Phil would cross her off their Christmas card list without a second thought. Bex wasn’t entirely sure she’d mind.

  The school bell rang and all the kids left off their games and ran to line up. Bex noticed the new ones, starting in reception, standing solemnly in line, most looking apprehensive and some looking tearful. Hovering nearby were their mothers and a few fathers who mirrored their kids’ emotions. Been there, done that, thought Bex, sympathetically. But now she was accustomed to having child-free days, she couldn’t wait to get home and get to grips with the worst of the mess downstairs – the result of having three children off school for six weeks. And the house needed some serious tidying if Amy, who was due to clean for her that afternoon, was going to be able to see the carpet, let alone vacuum it. And after that, she could return to her job at the pub. She’d missed working there over the summer holidays; the grown-up conversation with Belinda, the landlady; the banter from the regulars. In fact, it hadn’t been just the pub she’d missed – she’d missed the whole town. Yes, it had been lovely to see her parents up in the Lakes, and to have a holiday in the Med – even if it had involved her in-laws, but it was even lovelier to be back here again. It had made her realise that, despite having only lived in Little Woodford for six months, she felt more at home here than anywhere she’d lived before.

  It would be hard, she thought, not to like Little Woodford with its quirky high street filled with little independent shops selling everything from boho fashion to handmade greetings cards via cut flowers, car spares, pizzas, ice creams and books and everything in between. And it was undeniably pretty – an archetypical, middle-England market town with wiggly roofs, honey-coloured stone buildings, a myriad of hanging baskets, tubs and window boxes all filled to bursting point with flowering plants. And then there was the play park and the nature reserve and the utter Englishness of the cricket pitch down by the church… Such a contrast to their bit of London they had left behind with its pollution, two-tones, congestion and chain stores that made it a clone of every other street in every other suburb. Moving here had definitely been one of her better decisions in life.

  She waved goodbye to the boys – both engrossed in chatting to their mates in their lines and both oblivious of her farewell – before she made her way out of the playground and began to head down the hill towards the centre of the town and her house. As she turned onto the main road she glanced across it to her friend Olivia’s vast barn conversion. The estate agent’s shingle, hammered into the front lawn, announced that it was ‘sold subject to contract’. Olivia must be moving out soon. Bex paused and thought for a second about the mess her house was in and how she ought to be dealing with that… sod it, the mess could wait. Checking for traffic, she crossed the road then scrunched up the gravel drive. She hadn’t seen Olivia for weeks and she might well want a hand if she was in the middle of packing up. To offer some help was the least Bex could do for her friend – after all, when Bex had been swamped by her own unpacking, and Olivia had been a complete stranger, she’d come to introduce herself to the new arrival in town and ended up spending the evening with Bex, helping to unpack and organise the kitchen. When Bex had first met Olivia she hadn’t been sure she was going to like her. It had been obvious from the start that she was somewhat bossy and opinionated and, with her blonde bob and skirt-blouse-and-court-shoe apparel, she looked every inch the town busybody she so obviously was. But she was a doer and grafter and, even more than that, she was kind. And when Olivia had discovered that her public-school son had a drug habit and her husband had gambled away their life savings, her dignity in the face of such a crisis had been admirable. She was even making the best of having to sell up her ‘forever’ home to stop the family from going bankrupt. Bex was very fond of her.

  She rang the doorbell and waited patiently for it to be answered. She was slightly taken aback when it was opened by Olivia’s son, Zac.

  ‘Hi, Zac – no school?’

  ‘St Anselm’s doesn’t go back till next week,’ he told her.

  ‘Hello, Bex,’ called Olivia from the other side of the monstrous sitting room. She was busy wrapping up an ornament in newspaper. ‘Long time no see. How are you?’ She pushed a stray lock of hair off her face. ‘Zac, be a love and put the kettle on.’

  Zac loped off into the kitchen area on the far side of the room, skirting piles of cardboard boxes and a massive roll of bubble wrap.

  ‘St Anselm’s always gets a bonkers amount of holidays,’ said Olivia. ‘It seems to me that the more you pay for a child’s education, the less time he spends in the classroom.’

  ‘Quality not quantity,’ contradicted Zac over the gush of the tap as he filled the kettle.

  Olivia raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think your last year’s exam results back up that argument.’

  ‘No… well…’ The back of Zac’s neck glowed pink. He flicked
the kettle on. ‘I’ll take Oscar out for a walk if you two are going to talk.’ He grabbed his dog’s lead and whistled. Oscar, a black and white border collie, bounded out of his basket and headed for the front door.

  When they’d left, Olivia crossed the room herself and got a couple of mugs out of the cupboard.

  ‘How’s it all going?’ asked Bex, following her.

  ‘What? The move, paying off Nigel’s debts or Zac’s recovery from drugs?’ Olivia sounded weary.

  ‘Oh, sweetie…’ Bex gave Olivia a hug. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Olivia gave her a thin smile. ‘Don’t be. Honestly, we’re getting there. Zac’s fine – still clean – and I think I should be grateful he’s sowed his wild oats in a safe little place like this and that the guy who supplied him with all the drugs is doing time in the nick and out of the picture. Without him around I think the chances of Zac backsliding are pretty slim although I don’t think he will anyway – he’s learnt his lesson. I dread to think what would have happened if he’d got addicted at uni where he’d have been just another anonymous junkie student.’

  ‘True,’ murmured Bex. That’s one way to look at things, she supposed.

  ‘And Nigel’s debts will be cleared once we’ve got the money for this place and move into our new home.’

  ‘And that’ll be…?’

  ‘In a fortnight if all goes according to plan.’

  ‘Do you know who’s bought this?’

  Olivia shook her head. ‘Not a clue – to be honest I don’t want to know. The estate agent handled all the viewings and Nigel’s dealt with the paperwork. I… I…’ She stopped. ‘I found it all a bit upsetting.’

  Bex reached out and squeezed her friend’s arm.

  ‘I suppose I’ll find out what the new people are like when they move in.’ She looked around the huge living space. ‘I hope they’re happy here. I certainly have been… well, mostly. The last few months weren’t a barrel of laughs.’

  ‘No.’ And nor would they have been for anyone with Olivia’s problems. ‘But at least you managed to sort things out.’