Choked off (The Falconer Files Book 2)

by Andrea Frazer

  He fell, immediately, into a deep sleep as his head touched the pillow, but Adella continued muttering to herself, finally finishing her thoughts with, Well, if no one else is going to do anything about it, I am – and I know just what! I can do nothing to bring back our darling Maria, but there’s something I can fix. I just need to give it a little thought.

  Thoroughly awake by now, her mind busy with her plan, she got out of bed, slipped on a light coat, and some shoes, and, taking only a moment to scribble a note should Benedict wake and find her gone, left the house. Although nothing short of a bomb would usually wake Benedict, she took this precaution out of courtesy and, apart from anything else, she needed some air. She was a woman on a mission, and would not let the lateness of the hour delay her plan.

  Many of Stoney Cross’ resident performers were unable to sleep after the debacle of their presentations that day, and none of the artists was quite at ease, either. There were far too many possibilities concerning what would happen next, and quite a few people took to their cars, or to the lanes for a walk. Although none of them actually had a physical encounter with one another, there were many figures flitting about, mostly lost in thought, or seething with anger. May God have mercy on Marcus when he finally showed his face – he would need it!

  II

  Two of those who stayed put were Delia Jephcott and Camilla Markland.

  In Starlings’ Nest, Delia was screwing herself up to tell Ashley that she had been married to Marcus for a brief while, over twenty years ago. She was dreading his reaction, and terrified that she might lose her toy-boy; for she did love him, and hoped he loved her enough to forgive this little oversight on her part, about her past. He, after all, would have been only about seven or eight years old at the time … though that would highlight their age difference in his mind. God forbid – he might even leave her!

  As calmly as she could, her voice trembling only a little, she managed to speak the awful words and reveal the details of her darkest secret. As she finished, she was about to throw herself on Ashley’s mercy, when he suddenly shouted with laughter, and caught her up in a totally unexpected hug. ‘You silly mare!’ he declared. ‘I don’t care what you did before you met me, because that’s all in the past, and none of us can change the past. All that matters is now; and ‘now’ means you and me. Give us a kiss, dopey.’

  When she had disentangled herself, Delia examined his expression minutely. ‘You really don’t mind?’

  ‘More than that, I really don’t care. What’s the use of getting all bent out of shape by things we can’t change?’

  ‘Ashley Rushton, you are the best man in the world, and I’m so glad we’re together.’ Delia’s voice was quivering with emotion again, and un-spilled tears shone in her eyes.

  ‘Come here, you silly old thing,’ he almost crooned, gathering her into his arms again.

  ‘And not so much of the “old”,’ she admonished him, her voice muffled by his shoulder, where she had buried her face in relief. ‘Look, I know it’s late, but I’m going to go for a little stroll. I’m just so relieved that everything is out in the open, and you’re not packing your suitcase.’

  ‘Silly, silly Delia! Did you really think I was so shallow?’

  ‘Well, I do nag you a bit, but no, darling, it’s just …’ Her voice trailed into silence. She smiled at him with relief and went to get that fresh air she needed.

  III

  Camilla Markland was not so lucky with her husband Gregory’s reaction to her ‘little confession’.

  ‘You did what?’ he shouted in disbelief.

  ‘It was after that concert in Carsfold last year. I was absolutely smashed, what with nerves, champagne and adrenalin. I’ve never been so drunk, Greg, and he took advantage of my condition.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll bet he did. With you probably offering it to him on a plate, how could he possibly refuse?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that!’ she protested.

  ‘What was it like, then? Do you want to tell me, or would you rather I imagined it?’

  ‘Greg! I was absolutely off my face. I barely remember it! I just remember waking up the next day, realising what I’d done, and feeling as if my life was over.’

  ‘You tart! You whore! And with that shrivelled, pompous old …’ Greg Markland spluttered himself to a verbal standstill in his rage.

  ‘I’ve said I’m sorry, and I’m still mortified about it. Please, please don’t be too hard on me. I’ve been in hell ever since. And now he’s moved to the same bloody village, I knew it’d come out sooner or later, and I wanted to tell you first, before you heard it from him, or from someone else.’

  ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up! You bloody slut! I’m going out, and I don’t know whether I’ll be coming back. And if I do, it’ll just be to collect my stuff when I’ve found somewhere to stay.’

  ‘Greg, please don’t leave me. I’ll do anything – anything.’

  ‘Oh, I know you will, and you’ve just told me all about it. That’s us finished, as far as I’m concerned!’ and he bolted from the room, leaving Camilla slumped on the sofa, wailing and sobbing at the catastrophe that had overtaken her.

  IV

  Stoney Cross could take on a darker air by night. When The Inn on the Green had locked its door and closed for another day, the revellers dispersed, laughing and shouting, towards their own homes, the contrasting almost-silence had an unnerving quality about it. Many everyday objects that tell us where we are in time, such as satellite dishes, were lost in shadows. The street lighting was dim, as if it were still produced by gas, and the narrow roads and old buildings were also deceptive as to exactly when ‘now’ was – it could have been any time within the last hundred and fifty years or so. To a drunken mind, it was confusing and intimidating.

  Wisps and tendrils of mist from the nearby river, the Little Darle, floated and crept like questing fingers through the streets and gardens, adding an other-worldliness to the atmosphere. The village itself raged at Marcus, enveloping him in sudden foggy clouds that temporarily blinded him, making him stumble on unseen obstacles, and lose his way to such an extent that, at one point, he found himself in the middle of the road. He had to execute a nifty side-step to avoid an oncoming vehicle, which was travelling, fortunately for him, very slowly in the prevailing weather conditions, and swore under his breath as it moved invisibly away. The village was showing its flip-side – the side that remembered violence, deprivation, hunger and great hardship, and it teased Marcus’s imagination, quickening his pace, and making his heart beat a little faster as he approached the safety of his new home.

  Still feeling bloody-minded, his first action, after sitting down at his desk, was to pour himself a large brandy, pull the phone toward him, extract a small scrap of paper from his pocket, and punch in a number with rather more vigour than was necessary. Without giving the recipient of the call the chance to speak, he intoned, ‘Jenny! You can’t hide away any more. I told you the last time. I’ve found you! I’ve really found you now! And our daughter will want to visit you when she returns. Isn’t that just lovely and cosy, after all this time? We can start being a proper family. Won’t that be nice?’

  But there was only the dialling tone, as he got to the end of his torturing reminder. Replacing the receiver, he rubbed his hands together in squiffy glee, and pulled his mini-recorder towards him to go through his earlier oral notes, with a view to getting his next programme polished off before he went to bed. The memories of his more outrageous behaviour were already distant and faint, more like phantoms. He felt like the king of the world, about to wield his power and feeling so ‘goo-ooo-ood’.

  He was well into his stride when, unbeknown to him, a car crawled along the High Street through the mist, its engine noise muffled by the weather conditions. A car with no lights, and making as little noise as possible, given the circumstances, finally coasting as it reached the drive of The Old Barn. It could have been the car of any of the people he had upset that weekend, that da
y, that evening, but the driver was unidentifiable in the gloom of the vehicle’s interior, the dim street-lighting, and the obscuring quality of the mist.

  An entirely anonymous figure, it exited the vehicle, closing the driver’s door as quietly as possible, and made its way round towards the side of the property, where a light shone out on to the lawn from a pair of French windows, slightly ajar to let the heat of the day out and the cool of the night in.

  So engrossed was he in his mischief-making recording – he was now working straight on to the computer program – that he had no notion that someone had entered the room, walking quietly in bare feet. He was oblivious to the fact that that someone now stood behind him, arms raised, with something stretching between, and wound around, clenched fists.

  Yes, Stoney Cross was angry tonight, and the cause of that anger would soon suffer punishment …

  Chapter Nine

  Monday, 7th September – morning

  The Festival, after all the planning, hopes, ambitions and fears, had arrived, had ground its way to its ghastly conclusion, and now it only remained for the clearing-up to be done.

  The ‘usual suspects’ were at the village hall, bagging up Styrofoam cups, and biscuit and crisp packets, clearing away the tables, chairs and screens, and leaving the artwork in little piles, to be collected by their creators sometime that day.

  Serena, too, was there, having no trouble with transport, as her car was an automatic and could be driven with one foot, if necessary. She sat in state, on a chair near the piano, in what had been the performance area, her left leg propped up on another chair for support.

  Most of those present worked with relief that the whole experience was over and done with, but a few sat on stray chairs, apparently lost in a world of their own. Camilla Markland, usually so full of herself and her own opinions, was slumped in a chair at the rear of the hall near the doors, tears rolling down her face, her slightly beaky nose red and raw. To anyone who approached to see what was wrong, she gave a slight shake of the head, and turned away for a moment. She had not wanted to sit alone in her empty house, waiting for the sounds that Greg would never again make. So steeped in unhappiness was she that she had no hopes for his return, and contemplated a bleak and lonely future.

  At the other end of the hall Adella Ravenscastle sat, reaching down now and again to pet her Dachshund, Satan. On her face was an enigmatic smile. She let it rest there for the remainder of her time in the hall.

  Lydia, Fiona, Sadie, Minty, Delia, and Ashley worked with a will, while conducting a patchy and disjointed conversation. When Fiona dropped a glass sugar bowl with a resounding tinkle, Rollo, who was passing the piano at the time, crashed a chord of E min dim7 with both hands, followed by a two-octave D min, and finishing the flourish with a basement D, an octave below bottom D. This caused some amusement from those present, and even raised a smile from Camilla. Adella, however, carried on staring into the distance, still smiling her tiny smile, hugging her secret to herself like a child with a teddy bear.

  Christobel was not present, having begged her husband, Jeremy, to stay home with her for support, and not go to the grand clear-up, for fear he would return with tales of derogatory comments about her doggerel. That she would never write poetry again, she was absolutely sure; and she would not even be able to show her face in Stoney Cross for quite a while. She anticipated her self-imposed isolation with a sort of grim pleasure – a meting out of her own punishment, while avoiding all the back-biting and bitchery of other people in the immediate future.

  Also lending a helping hand were Felicity and Hugo Westinghall, their children, inevitably, throwing bread at the ducks on the pond along with the Pargeter children. Ducks that were now overflowing with largesse, and probably bruises, for the bread was always stale and sometimes rock-hard. A few of the other exhibiting artists were also part of the team, having been shamed into helping when they arrived to collect their pictures.

  Sadie and Minty were unexpected attendees, as they had shown their works at home. Their motives, however, were rooted in sheer nosiness – the need to know how other participants were feeling, so that they could compare this with their own reactions.

  At eleven o’clock or thereabouts, the two of them slipped off to a bench on the village green so that Sadie could have a cigarette or two, and they could compare notes. Taking their seats on the bench furthest from the pond and its coterie of eavesdropping little ears, they sat just the other side of the hedge that divided Sadie’s home from the green. Minty made the opening bid.

  ‘I thought I was going to wet myself again, this time with fear,’ she admitted, twisting her hands together in this remembered anguish.

  ‘That would have gone down well,’ Sadie replied, with the ghost of a chuckle.

  ‘Well, he’s got such cold eyes, and he never said a word about my stuff. I dread to think what he’s going to say about it on the programme,’ Minty continued, running one hand through her short hair – a habit she had when unnerved. ‘But what about you? Did he see that thing?’

  ‘He did indeed see it.’

  ‘And what did he say? Was he really angry? Did he make a scene and have a go at you?’

  ‘Nothing at all like that,’ Sadie recounted, with a slight upturn of her mouth. ‘I was in the kitchen when there was this almighty yell. I just knew he’d seen it, and went rushing in, not having a clue what I was going to say in my own defence. And he said nothing at all about it. He pretended he’d stubbed his toe on another of my lumps of stone, and left shortly afterwards. But I’ll tell you something: I had an anonymous offer on it through the letter-box, for twice what I had it priced up at.’

  ‘Surely, not from him?’ Minty was wide-eyed with surprise and speculation.

  ‘I think so. Obviously it wasn’t signed, and I don’t know his handwriting or his home phone-number, but I know it in my bones.’

  ‘But why would he want it?’ Minty was now puzzled, not being very good at devious motives.

  ‘For one of two reasons,’ Sadie began, in explanation. ‘Either he wanted to take a sledge hammer to it and destroy it, or he was more twisted than that. Perhaps he was going to hide it away. Maybe, for all his previous criticism, he realised I have real talent, and proposed to display it when I’m well known. Then it would become a delightful joke for him, even if the joke was on him, because it would make him seem like an old friend who had colluded in the piece.’

  ‘God, Sadie, however do you think of these things?’ Minty was definitely impressed.

  ‘I expect I’ve got a streak of devilish cunning running right through me,’ answered her friend, tossing aside her cigarette butt and beginning to rise. ‘Come on, you! There’s more work to be done before we can go to The Inn and reap our just rewards.’

  Tuesday, 8th – Thursday, 10th September

  It did not take long for a nine-days’-wonder to turn into a two-or three-days’-wonder, and life in Stoney Cross returned to its previously uninterrupted and peaceful existence. A few incidents, however, were worthy of note: changes wrought by Marcus moving to the village, and his air of ‘slumming it’ at the Festival.

  Felicity Westinghall had signed up for a creative writing course in Market Darley, determined to ‘up her game’ to a standard where she could realistically compete with Hugo.

  Lydia Culverwell had determined never to perform in public again, explaining her decision in one word – nerves. It was a face-saver, and was, in part, true. She could play well; was not a bad pianist, but fell to pieces before an audience. That she could play competently at home was one thing, but in front of others, on an alien instrument, her fingers became like two bunches of bananas, and there was nothing at all she could do about it.

  The eyes of Camilla Markland were now appearing naked in public. For everyday life, now that her secret was out, she shunned her once-beloved coloured contact lenses, reserving them only for concerts and other public performances. In her post-confessional state of misery, she couldn’t h
ave worn them anyway, she wept so much. Nobody in Stoney Cross was fooled any more, so what was the point? That she received a glimmer of respect for this, she would have been surprised to discover, and would later wonder why she had been so vain in the past.

  She had had a few agonisingly miserable days on her own. Days drowned in tears of grief and loss, then on Thursday evening, she had been startled to hear a key in the door, and overcome with joy to see Greg come through the front door. The thought that he might have come back just to collect some possessions never entered her mind, and she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms round him and crying (again) with relief. And she was lucky in her assumption because, having thought long and hard, he had decided, for now, that one small slip (stupid and faithless though it was), should not break up a marriage that had survived so long without any other such damaging incidents. Their reunion was both passionate and tender, and they must be left to enjoy it in privacy.

  Serena Lyddiard still spent most of her time at home. One leg elevated, she sat in her armchair while others telephoned or visited, keeping her up to date with everything that she had missed at the Festival, and any other village tittle-tattle that they thought would interest her, including the fact that Marcus seemed to have gone to ground. On Thursday afternoon, she ventured a tentative walk into the village, with just a crepe bandage and a walking stick for support, looking forward to her return to a more sociable life, and one of the tea-shop’s excellent coffee éclairs (made on the premises, of course).

  At The Vicarage, Adella Ravenscastle had confounded her husband by being rather distant and secretive, occasionally humming quietly, and going about her daily chores with a new briskness. She had been thrown back into the maws of an old grief at Marcus’s arrival, and yet, here she was, whizzing around with a duster and looking, if not radiant, then at least much more at peace. Her husband asked nothing, preferring to remain in ignorance if his wife was no longer tearful and full of anger.