A Little Local Murder

by Robert Barnard

  If Mrs Withens’s feelings that morning were not unlike those of a Renaissance prince, presiding over the revival of the arts and sciences within his little domain, her afternoon walk gave cause for those feelings to blossom and burgeon to alarming proportions. Her progress through the small town always resembled that of a large liner passing through a narrow strait, but it was not always that the inhabitants of Twytching showed any great enthusiasm for interrupting her passage by exchanging friendly words with her. Privately most people considered that though she was an imposing monument, and a credit to the town, still, personally she was a menace. But today, strangely enough, the eagerness to stop her and to touch metaphorically the hem of one or other of her drab garments was almost universal. Mrs Hopgood told her of her collection of unusual stones and pebbles, picked up throughout the length and breadth of South-East England; Mrs Battersby told her of her clever cat who could open doors; and Mrs Weatherby emerged from the Barstowe bus, cross and panting, her arm through what appeared to be some kind of large wheel which, to judge by the ungainly parcel of brown paper which she was banging against the sides of the bus as she got off, was attached to some sort of frame. Though she was in a state of considerable botheration, Mrs Weatherby brightened up immediately at the sight of Mrs Withens.

  ‘Ullo, Mrs Withens. Didn’t know I did my own spinning, did you? And weaving. All the old country crafts. Just tell me any time you might have a use for a length of cloth, and I’ll get it done for you in no time.’

  It was all very gratifying, to say the least. Mrs Withens did not beam, but she did show some sign of blossoming as she walked home along the streets and avenues, lined with bungalows and semi-detacheds, each with its little front gardens to be inspected and judged as she went. She gave a mental nod of approval to the early daffodils and budding trees, and gave them a good mark for effort. This sunny mood was somewhat tried, alas, by the apparition of the vicar suddenly bursting on to her attention from a side path which led to the bluebell woods and tottering in her direction as fast as his rickety old legs would allow, his head going spastically in this direction and that, and his once-red hair now like a disorder of sun-drenched corn. Mrs Withens knew that once he got that speed up, there was little danger of his stopping, but he slowed down a fraction, raised his right finger in a gesture of blessing and in his astronomically high voice and old-fashioned accent said:

  ‘Blessings on you, Mrs Withens, and on your good husband – on your risings in the morning and on your goings to bed at nights. Blessings on you . . . blessings . . .’

  And before Mrs Withens had had time to do more than bend her head briefly, the minimal acknowledgement of a Lord Temporal to a Lord Spiritual, he was gone down the road with a manic chuckle and a frantic nodding of the head. As usual after such encounters, Mrs Withens wondered whether she ought to write to the bishop. Four years now he had been like that, and it seemed idle to expect that anyone in the church would notice, let alone actually do anything about it.

  Her ruffled spirits were a little soothed as she walked on when she saw that Inspector Parrish was in his garden. If the Church was unworthily represented in Twytching, the Law, in her opinion, was not. Such a nice man – the image of the dependable, slow-thinking, right-minded type that ought to administer law and order in such a community. A lovely garden he had in summer, too, though perhaps a little too unregimented for her taste. The very best type of man, nevertheless. She would throw a word in his direction as she passed.

  Inspector George Parrish had kept himself in Mrs Withens’s good graces during his five years’ residence in Twytching by dint of listening, nodding and hiding his feelings. If he thought her a ridiculous old cow, and he did, he also knew that a good policeman does not wantonly reveal his opinion of any law-abiding citizen, and more especially not of such a pillar of the community as Mrs Withens. The reticence necessary to the job had always been one of its main attractions for him, for he liked with strangers to keep his counsel, not to be forced out into the open. He was to all intents and purposes a slow, kindly, rather slovenly countryman. His uniform never looked oversmart, and his sports jackets did not go over-often to the dry cleaner’s. He was a bachelor, used to fending for himself, and using up all his surplus energies in his garden. He had a large collection of records, and enjoyed a quiet pint in the Lamb and Child, provided it was not accompanied by too much politics thank you very much. Everyone said, condescendingly, that George Parrish wasn’t much of a talker. No one ever said that he was a very good listener, and some of them would be just a little uneasy if they had realized just how good a one he was. There was little or nothing that had gone on in Twytching in his five years’ residence that was not stored in his mind, and cross-referenced there to boot, but the inhabitants of the town, hugging their nasty little secrets, would have been willing to bet that George Parrish thought of little when he was off duty but roses and gladioli. With his sergeant, in the privacy of the station, he could be caustic and expansive, but otherwise he limited his outward emotions to quiet interest and sympathy. Whatever else took place in his mind, took place behind his eyeballs. Thus, behind his eyeballs he was cursing as Mrs Withens approached, looking the very image of a pillar of the community, and one no Samson would lightly take on the demolition of, cursing that he had not unbent himself from his weeding and registered her approach earlier, so that he might decently have disappeared round the back with a wheelbarrow of rubbish. But his eyes showed only a mild welcome as she wheeled her stately bulk around and addressed him over the wall.

  ‘A lovely day at last, Inspector,’ said Mrs Withens, who invariably gave him his title.

  ‘Indeed, ma’am,’ said Parrish. ‘Just the day I’ve been waiting for, and lucky I am to have the day free to use it.’

  The hint was lost on Mrs Withens, as hints always were. If she had something to discuss with the Inspector, discuss it she would, and without any fussy preliminaries if necessary.

  ‘The vicar,’ she said bluntly, ‘is getting worse.’

  ‘You don’t say so?’ said Parrish. ‘Ah well, that’s a shame, now. Poor old gentleman.’

  ‘Pity is all very well,’ said Deborah Withens, whose stocks of that commodity were always low and diminishing, like winter coal, ‘but he is the spiritual leader of this community, one must think of that. The possibilities are frightening to contemplate.’

  Inspector Parrish thought that there was very little difference between a clergyman in possession of all his faculties and a clergyman in possession of none of them, since in the context of modern village life both were equally irrevelant and ineffectual. The difference between a good vicar and a poor vicar could, in his opinion, be measured by the takings at a church bazaar. But these were not thoughts to be aired in the presence of Mrs Withens, and he merely said:

  ‘You’re right there, ma’am. Could be awkward if things were allowed to go too far.’

  ‘I meditate writing to the bishop,’ said Mrs Withens. ‘But there again, if I were to do that, could I confine myself to the vicar? There is so much in this little community that by rights a bishop should be aware of, as you no doubt know only too well, and it may be that this is not quite the time . . .’

  ‘What kind of thing was it you had in mind, then?’ asked Inspector Parrish unwisely, as she faded into a loaded silence.

  ‘The sort of thing, Inspector, that doesn’t come within your domain, more’s the pity, but would if things were properly ordered. The children born out of wedlock, or as good as. The men who consort with other people’s wives. The unnatural vice!’

  Inspector Parrish was privately of the opinion that there was very little sleeping around in Twytching, and he had even wondered whether it might not be a happier little community if a bit more did. A more lethargic and conformist town would be hard to find this side of the iron curtain, and most of the energies which might have gone into sex in fact went into tittle-tattle, back-biting and petty conspiracy. He knew that most of the men loved their cars infi
nitely more than any other human being. He certainly didn’t think for one moment that the bishop would be surprised by anything that Mrs Withens could find to tell him.

  ‘We’ve got our plates pretty full in the force as it is,’ he said dryly. ‘We’d have to have a recruiting drive before we took on that kind of thing as well.’

  ‘True, true,’ said Mrs Withens, giving every appearance of taking this point in all seriousness; ‘but no doubt with improved pay and conditions . . . But, as I say, I doubt if this is the time. As you have no doubt heard, we are being visited by Radio Broadwich. This is not the time to wash dirty linen in public. I intend to see that we put our best foot forward! Both our best feet, in fact!’

  ‘Very gratifying for the village as a whole, that,’ said the Inspector. ‘There’ll be a lot of interest, I doubt.’

  ‘Yes, very gratifying for the town,’ said Mrs Withens, with a slight emphasis on the noun, for Twytching had something near four thousand inhabitants, and Mrs Withens took the view that if you diminished Twytching, you diminished her. ‘Interest, of course, there will be,’ she continued, swelling visibly and unpleasantly, ‘and it is to be welcomed if it is interest of the right kind. Many have already spoken to me about appearing on the programme, though they do not put it in so many words. There is no doubt a good deal of conspiring going on, and a good deal of talk. But people will have me to deal with, and you can be sure I shall not be easy to “come over”. I intend that the Americans shall get a healthy, edifying picture of our little community, and I am not to be fooled into letting through anyone who is unworthy of us in any way.’

  The woman seemed more ridiculous and more nasty by the minute, and even someone as reticent as Inspector Parrish felt the need to give her a word of warning.

  ‘Very commendable, ma’am,’ he said, ‘but if you’ll allow me to say so, rather dangerous. These little towns can be full of little unpleasantnesses under the surface, and if once they’re stirred up, nasty things can happen – things which I would be interested in, as a policeman. If I were you, I’d leave it to the gentleman producing the programme to decide who will or won’t be on it. That way, you see, there won’t be anyone in Twytching for people to – well, to focus their discontent on to, like.’

  It was a long speech for Inspector Parrish, but it was followed by a silence almost equal in duration. Mrs Withens was disappointed in him, and this was her method of letting him know it. What was more, he had struck a blow at her own image of herself. When she spoke, it was with magisterial emphasis.

  ‘I’m sure you mean well, Inspector,’ she said. ‘But when I shrink from my duty, then I shall know that the time has come for me to lay down the burdens of office. That time has not come yet. Not quite yet.’

  Far from shrinking, she seemed still more to be swelling minute by minute. She bent her head in displeasure towards the inspector, changed her tack, and proceeded in the direction of home with the storm-clouds gathering ominously around her head. Leave it to the producer of the programme! Preposterous! No one who knew anything of the force and determination of her personality, her splendid consistency of purpose, would imagine anything of the kind to be possible. And as for stirring up ill-will in the community – when had she shrunk from such a stirring when necessary? There were, in fact, many of her fellow inhabitants to whom she had long been intending to give a piece of her mind, without having yet found the occasion. She had no doubt that in the course of the next few weeks, those occasions would present themselves.

  In fact, she was in the midst of this moral meditation when she saw approaching in the distance, from the direction of the Methodist Chapel, just such a one as she had been thinking of. In a moment she was restored to something like equanimity. Mrs Mailer! Alison Mailer, of the cool, fashionable clothes! Alison Mailer of the supercilious expression! If there was anybody Mrs Withens would like to believe was sleeping around it was Alison Mailer: why else would she look so coolly inviting after twelve or thirteen years of marriage? It wasn’t in nature. What a pity she had no evidence of any sexual escapades of this sort. Perhaps she had a pied-à-terre in London. Mrs Withens savoured the amorous connotations which gathered in her mind around that undoubtedly un-English phrase. Yes, her extra-marital adventures must take place in a pied-à-terre!

  And here she was, coming towards her, and without a doubt itching to get on This is Twytching. Alison Mailer was a pusher, if ever Mrs Withens saw a pusher. Of course she would stop and speak to her, as everyone in Twytching had stopped to speak to her that afternoon. And what little hobby would Mrs Mailer have invented to press her claim to represent the best in Twytching? Would she suggest forming a branch of the WI? Or perhaps starting fashion classes in the evening? Or did she dabble in watercolours? The prospect of worsting her was glorious. Deborah Withens tensed her muscles and clothed herself from head to toe in that ice of disapproval and negation with which she intended to meet any such proposal. In a moment she would reach the spot where she calculated Alison would have visibly to notice her, put on a false smile of friendship, and start across the road to accost her.

  But Alison came to that spot, and passed it. She continued on her cool, graceful way without apparently feeling the need to cross the road and pay her respects to the symbol of civic government proceeding in the opposite direction. So that all that happened was that just before they passed each other Alison gave Mrs Withens a distant, studied wave and a smile of gracious condescension, while her eyes strayed as if involuntarily and with infinite contempt in the direction of Mrs Withens’s sensible walking shoes. And in a moment she was gone.

  Deborah Withens felt blow through her a cold wind of fury, a spasm of balked revenge. Someone would pay for this: even if it was only Ernest, someone would pay.

  CHAPTER IV

  RADIO BROADWICH

  The chain of events that had led to the memorable day on which the letter had arrived on Mrs Withens’s breakfast plate had many links, and one of the most vital of those links had been an incident on the previous visit to Twytching of Ted Livermore, Features Producer for Radio Broadwich. At 12.45 on Sunday, January 27th, Joy Billington, landlady of the Lamb and Child public house, had leant forward, resting her succulent breasts on the bar top and pointed them invitingly in the direction of the only person in the bar whose face she was not familiar with, saying: ‘Haven’t seen you here before, love. Have you just come to live round here, then?’ The stranger was Ted Livermore, and it was at that moment that he decided he would be coming back to Twytching.

  Ted was a native of Barnsley, and a second-class graduate in Sociology from Leicester University. His father had worked in the Town Clerk’s office, and his mother did three mornings a week in a dress shop, wore her skirts too short or too long, and tried to talk with a Southern accent. Ted was stocky, randy in an undiscriminating sort of way, and inclined to melancholy. He was the sort of person who went through life looking as if he was wearing his brother’s trousers. He had seen through Sociology in his second term of study, but he had never summoned up the energy to change subject. Previous to his coming to Broadwich, he had been employed by the BBC. He was an unlikely employee of the BBC – he knew it, and everybody else knew it. He had in fact been recruited in the early years of Lord Hill’s reign, when the idea had suddenly been put around that for a public corporation the BBC engaged its staff on much too much of an old-boys-together, pansier-than-thou basis, and that something more democratic was called for. This was also in the days of the first Wilson government, when several spurious gestures had been made in the direction of greater democracy by a number of official and semi-official bodies. The matter had become a common subject of tea-time chatter in BBC canteens. ‘What we need is a few provincial mediocrities,’ a high executive had been heard to say, with a little giggle. The policy had not lasted long, and Ted Livermore had found himself stranded, a fish out of water, a plastic mac in a world of Jermyn Street shirts and leather shoulder-bags. He kept telling himself it was a good job, that he
’d be a fool to chuck it in, and probably his habitual lethargy would have prevented him ever making a move if the offer from Radio Broadwich, made through the boy-friend of a girlfriend of his, had not coincided with the rejection by his immediate superior of his second suggestion for a Book at Bedtime. Ted had a sudden feeling that he didn’t wish to work for an organization with such odd ideas of what was and was not suitable for such a spot, and he handed in his resignation. The next day he sat around waiting for someone to beg him to withdraw it. Some weeks later he moved to Broadwich.

  At the moment when Joy Billington thrust her remarkable pectoral proportions under his thirsty gaze he was returning from what had been intended as a dirty weekend at Walton-on-Naze with a virginal young temp from Aberdeen. At the last moment she had gone all Scottish on him, and had taken the train back to Broadwich in floods of apologetic tears, leaving him to the sea-birds and the tea-rooms closed during the winter months. Thus he was just in the mood for Mrs Billington’s air of general availability, and he replied: ‘Just passing through. But I’ll be back.’ In spring, he thought. When the sap is rising.