She turned off the engine and stepped out of her car, bristling a little as a cold gust blew through her cassock. When she looked up, she noticed the small figure of Philippa, the church secretary, braving the wind as she ran with almost comically tiny steps toward the Reverend.
“Philippa! It’s rather late for you to still be here, isn’t it?”
Philippa clutched her coat around her as she drew close. “Hello, Reverend. I’m very sorry, but I was rather hoping you would give me a lift home. I completely lost track of time.”
Though Annabelle was tired herself, she could never leave her most loyal friend to face the cool night alone. Philippa didn’t live too far away, and in fact, it was a rather pleasant walk in the summertime. In unpredictable weather and cold snaps that emerged at other times of the year, however, it felt twice as long.
“Hop in,” Annabelle said, with a good-natured shake of her head.
“Thank you, Annabelle,” Philippa said, as she got in and placed her hands primly on her lap.
Annabelle reversed the car and pulled back out onto the country road.
“This is terribly unlike you, Philippa. Whatever were you doing that you lost track of the time?”
“Just my usual duties.”
“Hmm,” replied Annabelle, unconvinced, “you must have checked the accounting ledgers four times in the past week alone. And if you sweep those steps any more you’ll wear them down to a ramp!”
“I’m just being thorough, Reverend.”
Annabelle shook her head as she eased the car around the corners of the village’s buildings.
“Believe it or not, yours isn’t even the strangest behavior I’ve witnessed today. I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something in the air.”
Philippa remained silent.
Annabelle parked the car outside Philippa’s well-maintained front garden and broke the silence with the click of her handbrake. Philippa promptly undid her seatbelt.
“Before you go,” Annabelle said, turning in her seat to face her mousey friend, “I want to ask you something.”
“Yes, Reverend?”
Annabelle frowned, seeking the right words. She didn’t want to go spreading police business around – especially to someone as prone to gossip as Philippa – but she felt that she had to know more. And there was no better person to ask.
“Have you ever heard any rumors regarding a ghost in Upton St. Mary?”
Philippa’s face stretched itself into an expression of such shock that all her wrinkles disappeared and she looked a full five years younger. She clasped a hand to her chest and stared at Annabelle as if she had transformed into a werewolf before her very own eyes.
“I… What.... Why would you ask me such a thing, Reverend?!”
Annabelle squinted at her colleague’s overly dramatic reaction.
“Are you alright, Philippa?”
“Yes!” Philippa affirmed, sharply. “I’m absolutely perfectly fine! I just have no idea why you would ask me about a ghost!”
Annabelle opened her mouth to question Philippa’s strange tone before thinking better of it. Philippa was a wonderful friend, but she had a habit of harnessing on to strange notions that caused her to act weirdly at times.
“Forget I asked. It was just a rumor I heard.”
“What rumor?” Philippa blurted, almost before the Reverend had finished her sentence.
“Ah… Well…” Annabelle stuttered, suddenly feeling that she was the one put on the spot.
“Now you’re the one acting strangely!” Philippa said triumphantly. She leaned forward, taking the initiative. “What’s going on, Annabelle?”
“Nothing! Just… Well…”
For a few moments the two women exchanged odd looks with the rapidity of a tennis match, their expressions flickering between suspicious, annoyed, defensive, and frightened.
“Oh, this is ridiculous!” exclaimed Annabelle finally, throwing her hands in the air.
Philippa turned away, seeming relieved that whatever danger she had perceived from the Vicar’s line of questioning was gone.
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then, Philippa,” Annabelle said, adding a shake of her head to her tone of defeat.
“Bye, Reverend,” Philippa responded in a monotone as she got out of the car and made her way to her front door.
Annabelle watched her fumble for her keys and go inside before turning the car around and heading back to the church.
Ordinarily, Philippa’s bizarre behavior would have been cause for concern enough. Today, it was just another strange event to add to the others. Almost everyone she had spoken to was exhibiting peculiar reactions, and Annabelle could not bear the feeling that she was standing on the edge of not just one, but several mysteries.
As a child, her father, a London cabbie who adhered to the profession’s stereotype by having an opinion on everything, had a saying for certain kinds of drivers: ‘They take a pound to start, and a pound to stop.’ Annabelle felt that the saying could easily be applied to Upton St. Mary. A good event in the small village seemed to spark a snowball of positive feeling and good fortune that spread to everyone within its vicinity. Unfortunately, it worked the other way around too. If the behavior of DI Nicholls, Philippa, and Constable Raven were anything to go by, soon the whole village would be enraptured by the dark intrigue and paranoid speculation that seemed to be swirling around her.
She drove her Mini expertly along the winding roads. It was an experience that she usually savored as one of life’s most underappreciated and satisfying pleasures. To drive along these elegantly arranged country lanes guided solely by the headlights of her car was, to her, heavenly. Tonight, however, it was a time of solitude and quiet during which her mind ran rampant with growing worries and concerns over the events of the day.
Top of the list had to be the identity of the body that young Dougie had discovered. Though she had become as much a staple of village life as the annual cake competition, Annabelle had only been in Upton St. Mary for a few years. Usually her closest friend would fill her in (a little too eagerly, and with a little more information than was strictly necessary) when she found her knowledge of Upton St. Mary’s past, or its inhabitants, was lacking. But with Philippa acting in a manner that was so out of the ordinary, Annabelle would have to find another long-time resident and expert gossip to aid her in the investigation to find out who the body might be.
Of course, the question of whether Annabelle should even be getting involved with this police matter never occurred to her. She regarded the unveiling of the village’s mysteries as part of her Godly duties. The maintaining of the villagers’ peace of mind was a matter of course for the church vicar. That’s how she saw it.
After all, it would by no means be the first time police work had overlapped with her churchly responsibilities and on those previous occasions her diligence, curiosity, and astute intuition had borne rather satisfying results. Already, she felt she had gained some insight that had not yet reached the admirable Inspector Nicholls: The ghost of Miss Montgomery’s sister.
There’s no way Dougie would have divulged playground hearsay to DI Nicholls. The Inspector was much too intimidating and abrupt for that. And even if he had, it’s the sort of thing the detective would have dismissed out of hand even on his better days. Annabelle, however, was a strong believer that “out of the mouth of babes comes truth.” A slightly distorted truth, perhaps, but a truth worth considering.
Just as she was engrossed in these deepest of thoughts, something darted across the road.
“Crikey!” Annabelle cried out, slamming on the brakes.
The car jolted to a halt, flinging Annabelle forward, then thumping her back against the seat. When she looked up again the road was empty. She had seen foxes cross the road before, and on one occasion a lone sheep, but this had looked more like a pig.
Surely not, thought Annabelle. Pigs were fenced in. They rarely roamed. She shook off the incident, too tired to add another ques
tion to her growing pile, and continued homewards.
When she reached the church, she parked her car beside her cottage and got out without taking a moment to appreciate the picturesque night sky as she usually did when arriving home at this hour. She entered her house in a hurry. She wanted to have a shower and get to bed; tomorrow was going to be a long and busy day. Especially if her instinct that this was only just the beginning of a period of complexity and intrigue turned out to be correct.
Dr. Robert Brownson could not stop fidgeting as he drove his white Honda Civic down the M3 toward Upton St. Mary. He alternated restlessly between having the radio on and turning it off, finding that his thoughts wandered out of control when it was off, and that most of the music reminded him of… her. At some point as he left behind the dense roads of London, he settled upon a talk radio station and decided to focus on the road that unfurled under the light of his car’s headlamps. It was a long drive, made longer by his anticipation of what, and who, awaited him.
Ordinarily, he would not have driven throughout the night, but these were no ordinary circumstances. This was an opportunity that he felt compelled to grab with both hands, an opportunity that he had been waiting for for years, and one which he was most certainly not going to let pass through his fingers.
Dr. Brownson shuffled a little in his seat, finding that his most expensive suit had shrunk in the year since he had last worn it. He was successful, talented, and had established himself in the most privileged and distinguished circles of London’s scientific community. However, there were few events in the calendar of a forensic anthropologist grand enough to demand his best clothes. This occasion was an exception.
The request had come through during the evening, much later than he typically received business calls. He had almost ignored it completely. The voice on the other end had been friendly but officious, a young police constable who requested his assistance on a case.
“Can’t the local pathologist handle it?”
“She requested a forensic anthropologist. You, specifically.”
At the mention of a female pathologist, Robert Brownson’s thoughts were already in the past.
“Who requested me?” he asked, tentatively.
Upon hearing her name, Dr. Brownson was thrust sharply back into the past. A magical day at the Oxford Cambridge boat race. Punting down the River Cherwell. Passionate discussions about history and philosophy, where romance had blossomed across the overlap in their interests.
Robert Brownson had always been slightly shy, the kind of person who took time to reveal the full spectrum of his personality. He was humorous and good-natured, but he struggled to find opportunities where these positive qualities could flourish. At the time of his relationship with the raven-haired angel, he had felt blessed by her strong independence. Her incredible ambition and dedicated humility had given her, and indeed, those around her a sense of strength. He had felt emboldened. He could remember almost every conversation they had had, almost every item of clothing she had worn, and every which way she had styled her hair, like the notes to a song listened to many times over.
Unfortunately, the most vivid memory was that of her revelation. She would leave Oxford to take up a once-in-a-lifetime Ph.D. opportunity at a top university in America. There was nothing he could do or say. She was determined. He had been bereft.
Decades later, he was hearing her name again, associated with a case in a small village somewhere near the south coast of England. At times throughout the intervening years, he had teased and fortified himself with the notion that one day he would hear of her and descend to declare thirty years of pent-up feelings for the woman he had not stopped thinking about for the duration. But he knew it was not in his character. He would crumble before such a grand gesture.
Now though, years of good karma had been cashed in. He had been handed the greatest opportunity he would ever get – a coincidence so extraordinary it was enough to make a scientist believe in God – to reconnect with his one true love, the one that got away, his soulmate: Harper Jones.
CHAPTER 3
ANNABELLE AWOKE FEELING breezy and light for about five seconds. After that, the concerns and questions that had troubled her during the previous day flooded her mind so vehemently that not even the dappled morning light could lift her spirits. She showered, dressed, and made her way into the kitchen, opening curtains as she passed through the house to let the morning sunshine infuse some of its uplifting energy into the rooms. As she was about to place some bread in the toaster, however, she heard a distant scratching sound coming from the church. She paused, listening closely. It stopped for a few moments, before starting up again with even more vigor.
“What on earth could that be at this time of morning?” she muttered to herself as she leaned across the sink to see out of the window.
Outside, wielding a broom as if it were a weapon was the small figure of Philippa, an expression of grim determination upon her face. Biscuit was watching from a tree branch and after a few moments, she leapt down and began eagerly chasing the broom that Philippa was sweeping briskly from side to side. Biscuit’s “help” didn’t seem to improve Philippa’s mood any and she brushed the step even harder for a few moments before quickly prodding Biscuit, an action designed to deter the cat. An action that was successful.
“She brushed those steps yesterday!” Annabelle exclaimed to nobody in particular.
Philippa was by no means lazy, and indeed, seemed to take great satisfaction in undertaking the lion’s share of the church’s upkeep. It was just a little past eight on a Saturday morning, however, and combined with Philippa’s lateness in leaving the church the day before, Annabelle began to grow deeply worried about her church secretary’s behavior.
She rapped on the window loudly until Philippa, who was so engrossed in her task that it took her a while to notice, looked up. She locked eyes with the vicar and waved. Annabelle gestured for Philippa to join her in her cottage kitchen, and watched as the church secretary placed her broomstick aside almost reluctantly, before making her way over.
“Morning, Reverend,” Philippa said quietly, as she stepped into the kitchen.
“How long have you been out there, Philippa?” Annabelle said, readying an extra cup for morning tea.
“Oh, not long,” Philippa replied, “about an hour or so.”
Annabelle decided to hide her surprise.
“Are you not sleeping well?”
“No, Reverend. I’m sleeping perfectly fine.”
“Hmm,” Annabelle concluded, unconvinced. “Toast?”
“Yes please, Reverend,” Philippa answered politely. “I was in such a rush this morning that I didn’t have any breakfast.”
Annabelle turned her back to put some more bread in the toaster and to hide the look on her face. The mystery of what was troubling Philippa only seemed to grow more and more curious.
Once breakfast was ready, Annabelle placed the plates on the table and took a seat beside Philippa, who was eerily quiet for a woman who enjoyed passing judgment on all and sundry and rarely missed the opportunity to do so. They ate in silence for a while, to the music of crunched toast and cutlery clinking as they dug into scrambled eggs and bacon.
Annabelle mentally toyed with various questions that she could ask Philippa in order to probe further into what was bothering her but decided against it. Philippa knew Annabelle well enough to detect when she was fishing for information. Still, she was beginning to grow tired of feeling like there was much that she didn’t know.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard any gossip coming from the village today, have you?” Annabelle asked, in as innocent and casual a manner as she could manage.
“No,” Philippa said solemnly. “Though I’m to meet Barbara Simpson in a bit.”
“Ah, Barbara! I’ve not seen her in a while.”
“Vicars are rarely close with village pub owners,” Philippa said, allowing herself the little witticism despite her quiet mood.
“Still, I’m long overdue on catching up with her,” Annabelle said, warming to the idea.
“You’re welcome to join us,” Philippa said.
“And here she is,” Annabelle exclaimed, looking out of the window as she jumped from her seat.
Sure enough, the buxom figure of Barbara Simpson, owner of the Dog And Duck, the most frequented pub in Upton St. Mary, was tottering into the church driveway upon her high-heeled stilettos. Despite being barely five feet tall, Barbara Simpson was easy to recognize even at a distance, for the extravagant fake-fur coats she wore and her propensity for lurid, clashing colors. Though she was well into her fifties and undeniably one of the most astute and successful women in the village, Barbara possessed the taste in fashion of an adolescent schoolgirl. Her high-pitched, girlish voice seemed to reverberate for miles wherever she went while above her perpetually smiling face, heavily made-up in hues of pink (lips), red (cheeks), and blue (eyes), sat her proudest possession: her thick, pale-blonde hair, arranged into an elaborately sculpted beehive that she would caress and puff up frequently with her inch-long fingernails.
Annabelle opened her door and invited the woman inside.
“Thank you, Reverend! Ooh, it’s been such a long time since I’ve been to church. I’m feeling all guilty!” she giggled, stepping into the kitchen and greeting Philippa.
“It’s rather early for you, isn’t it Barbara?” Annabelle said.
“Oh, I had to go to the market. Get the best veg for tonight’s dinner menu before I was left with the scraps. Chef’s off until lunchtime or he’d do it. I thought I’d have a chat with Philippa before going back to the pub.”
“Would you like some tea?” Annabelle asked.
Barbara’s larger-than-life face lit up as it did when she found something funny, which was rather often. “I always like it when I’m the one being offered a drink instead of the other way around. Especially when it’s a vicar doing the asking!”
Annabelle smiled and got to work on the tea.
“How are you, my darling?” Barbara said to Philippa, placing an affectionate hand on her knee. “I’ve not seen you in days!”
Body in the Woods (A Reverend Annabelle Dixon Cozy Mystery Book 3) Page 3