Eleven Pipers Piping: A Father Christmas Mystery

by C. C. Benison

  Much love,

  Madrun

  P.S. I don’t usually cook roast beef two Sundays in a row, but Mr. C says I should get back up on that horse as regards my Yorkshire, so fingers crossed, Mum!

  P.P.S. I just had a terrible thought! What if this weather means Karla and I can’t get to Tenerife this year? We’re to leave in 10 days.

  P.P.P.S. Have you thought any more about getting one of those mobility scooters? Mum, I really think they might be the thing as long as you mind how you go on the hills!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sorry to be so early, I’m missing my Becca,” Molly said in a rush when Tom opened the door to her, her anxious eyes lightening at the sight of him.

  “Come in,” he responded unnecessarily as she slipped into the vestibule, a whisper of the cold clinging to her jacket trailing into the small space as she passed. Tom glanced into the front garden at the pure sweep of white, broken only by the hieroglyphic of Molly’s footsteps from gate to stoop.

  “The sight of all this snow is … stunning, isn’t it?” He closed the door and waited as Molly unzipped her jacket. “Everyone’s in the kitchen. Have you eaten? Mrs. Prowse has plenty.”

  “I had a little something earlier, thanks.”

  “Your cooker is working, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “So is ours.” Tom received the coat from her—noting how thin she was out of her cook’s uniform of the previous evening—and placed it on a crowded hook over the deacon’s bench. “Come through to the kitchen. It’s warmest there.”

  “Perhaps I best wait here.” Molly pulled off a black crocheted cap and shook her head to release an abundance of carefully crimped spiralling hair, which fell down the back of the olive-coloured cashmere sweater she was wearing over rust jeans.

  Tom wondered if he should take her choice of apparel as a hopeful sign of better mental health. Molly’s pedigree was pure Anglo-Celt, expressed in her fair skin, fox-red hair, and dusting of freckles across her nose, but she had long been gossiped about in the village for wearing dresses over trousers in the Indian style, for the multiplicity of gold bracelets along her arm, the embellishment of a sari on festive occasions, and even, sometimes, a caste mark on her forehead, which she really had no business wearing. She reminded Tom when he first arrived in Thornford of a religious convert who took on the trappings of new faith with zeal, though she came to St. Nicholas’s intermittently, placed Becca in Sunday school, and made no practice of alternative faith. He suspected the thoroughly assimilated Victor tolerated this sort of show in his wife, and wondered what his views were on the new Molly who had emerged recently from her fabulist chrysalis as a garden-variety village mum in jeans and jacket—though the gear looked, to Tom’s undiscerning eye, to be the best sort of jeans and jacket.

  “I’m sorry to be early to pick her up, but I wanted to know she was all right.”

  “Becca’s fine, Molly,” Tom said gently, leading her into the sitting room, where he had earlier lit a fire against the chill. Sleeping bags, articles of clothing, DVD cases, and detritus of some board game were scattered over the rug. He glanced at the open door to the hall and lowered his voice. “The girls don’t know what’s happened. We haven’t said anything.”

  “Oh, I am relieved. I thought about coming for Becca last night.”

  “I’m very glad you didn’t,” Tom replied evenly. He was startled that Molly would have considered intruding upon the girls’ party, and imagined the effect. What worse signal could there have been that something had gone disastrously wrong?

  He regarded her with pity. She had suffered the most appalling loss a parent could suffer. Briefly, after the shock of her son’s death, she seemed to come to grips with her loss, resuming some of the rhythms of her old life, managing the Totnes branch of GoodGreens, one of a chain of health-food shops in the West Country owned by her parents, and event catering, which allowed her to parade her culinary talents.

  But soon, it was as if the full realisation of what she had suffered had reached out and pulled her into a grey mist. He had heard from Madrun that she abrogated her few duties to GoodGreens and turned down catering contracts. Victor would bring Becca to Sunday school; Molly retreated to Damara Cottage, her and Victor’s home on Orchard Hill, doing Tom knew not what, spurning all help. He recognised the signs of sorrowful depression; he had seen it in not a few parishioners during his pastoral work, dealing with the aftereffects of loss; he had experienced its relentless grip himself in the bitter days after Lisbeth’s murder. The wonder—and perhaps another hopeful sign—was that Molly had roused herself to cater a large meal at Thorn Court.

  “We’ll keep Ariel here until we can somehow get Caroline back from town,” Tom continued. “Or Adam, at the very least.”

  “There’s Nick.”

  “I’m not sure Caroline would want her brother to be the one to tell Ariel.”

  “She’ll wonder why she can’t go back on her own, you know. The hotel’s only up the road.” Molly perched on the edge of a wing chair by the fire, tugged Becca’s sleeping bag towards her, and began rolling it, squeezing the air from the down as she went along. “Or why her father can’t come and fetch her.”

  “Thankfully, all the girls are very excited about the snow, so I think we can keep them preoccupied for a while. There’s talk of building a snowman this morning. But I don’t know what we’ll do if Caroline is stuck in town. John Copeland is going to try and get her in his Land Rover. He thinks he might be able to get through.

  “It’s all quite awful, isn’t it?” he added, watching her long, slim fingers bind the straps on the bag. When she didn’t respond, he asked, “Would you like a cup of something—tea?”

  “Do you have anything herbal?”

  “Mrs. Prowse seems to stock everything known to man … or woman. Anything in particular?”

  “Genmaicha?”

  “Well,” said Tom, who had never heard of it, “I’ll see what Mrs. P has on offer. Are you sure you wouldn’t care to join us?” Her face, as she surveyed the room in search of more of Becca’s things, betrayed in a flicker an emotion he didn’t expect to see—excitement? pleasure? he couldn’t quite pin it down—which vanished the instant she realised she was being observed.

  “No, Tom. Really, I’m fine here on my own.”

  He returned a few moments later with a tray Madrun had laid out. She had indeed had Genmaicha, amazing woman, and had thoughtfully added several of her homemade walnut biscuits. She had nearly sailed out the kitchen with it, too, but Tom felt a need for a private conversation with Molly, not least because Becca had groaned at hearing of her mother’s presence and hinted that Tom should intercede to let her stay with her friends and build a snowman in the vicarage garden.

  “I should say—because there really was no good moment last night—that the curry was brilliant.” Tom placed the tray on a low table next to Molly’s chair and caught a whiff of the tea, which smelled like hot, soggy cereal. “A wonderful substitution. Was it your idea?”

  “Oh … Victor’s, I think. Or was it mine? I really can’t remember.” She frowned and sipped her tea. “I think Will was a bit stuck for someone to cater the Burns Supper when he and Caroline decided to close Thorn Court for renovations, and it being too late for the Thistle But Mostly Rose to book somewhere else.”

  “Well, it was as good as anything I’ve ever had in a restaurant.” Tom bent to add a log to the flames. “And you made the haggis and the rest, too?”

  “No, the haggis was Roger’s contribution. He always does two, Victor tells me. One’s for the what-do-you-call it—the address. The other’s for the chef to plate in the kitchen. All I had to do was boil them. The potatoes and the turnips were simple to do and so was the cranachan. Hardly an episode of Top Chef.”

  “Well, anyway, Molly, it was very good to see you, you know, out and about. How are you feeling? If there’s anything I can do …”

  “I’ve been seeing Celia, actually.” Molly tugged at an
invisible thread on her sleeve.

  “Oh? I didn’t know.”

  “She’s really very good.”

  “I’m sure she is,” Tom responded evenly, sensing he was being baited. Celia Holmes-Parry, wife of St. Nicholas’s music director, Colm Parry, had trained as a psychotherapist though she took on few patients now, preferring country pursuits, horses chief among them. “The clouds are lifting a little, then?”

  “Perhaps. A little.” Molly looked up and favoured him with what looked like the shadow of a brave smile.

  “Excellent. I hope last evening’s events didn’t distress you too much.” Tom shook his head, still confounded at the tragedy. “It really was a terrible shock.”

  Molly regarded him with a new, alert expression. “It’s karma, isn’t it.”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “Karma.”

  He’d heard her the first time—she voiced it as a statement, not as a question—and he couldn’t suppress his irritation. Mind troubled by misgivings over Will, stomach made queasy by excess food and drink, he had not slept well.

  “Karma? You can’t possibly mean you think Will was punished with untimely death for some deed in some supposed past life.”

  “No, in this life.”

  Tom was aghast. “That’s very harsh, Molly, don’t you think? Will’s outburst towards Harry was a single episode—terrible, true, but deeply, deeply regretted. And anyway,” he continued, watching her face stiffen, “Christians believe in grace, not karma.”

  He was immediately sorry for rebuking her. The apology was on his lips when he heard heavy footfalls in the hall. John poked his head into the sitting room.

  “Tom,” he began, “I’m going to—”

  But he stopped himself as Ariel slipped around him and headed for the games table.

  “—go. On that errand we talked about. With luck, I should be back in time for the service. Hello, Molly,” he added, taking a step into the room. “That was a fine meal you provided last night. And Ariel …”

  Tom watched this normally taciturn man struggle for a cheery salutation.

  “… I’ve had an idea. Perhaps walnuts would do for the snowman’s eyes. I saw some in a bowl in the kitchen. What do you think? You could paint them black first.”

  Ariel, in her small and female way as ruddy-cheeked and sturdy as John, seemed to mimic his movement, tugging at the floral coat of her pajama set. “But Frosty’s were made out of coal.” She frowned up at him as she squeezed a small purple plastic camera into the coat’s front pocket. “Mrs. Kaif”—she turned to Molly—“would it be okay if Becca stayed with us to help make the snowman?”

  Molly flicked Tom a reproachful glance, then granted Ariel a tight smile. “No. I’m sorry. Becca needs to come with me. I don’t want her—”

  “Ariel,” Tom interrupted, fearing Molly would be indiscreet, purposefully or not, “three’s just the right number to build the very best snowman. Becca can come around later, perhaps, and view your work, yes?” He looked to Molly for agreement, but silently, with short, sharp movements, she plucked up Becca’s things and began to thrust them into her backpack.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the end, John’s expectation that he could drive to town and return to Thornford in time to take up his sidesman duties at St. Nicholas’s was misplaced. Tom wasn’t surprised. The sunless world he stepped into when he left the vicarage that morning was even more choked with snow than he had imagined it might be when he woke and stumbled to his bedroom window, stupidly expecting to assess road conditions in the pitch black of a January morning. The stone walls bordering the vicarage garden were buried up to their haunches, and when he tramped through the drifts into Church Walk, the first things to greet his eyes were two great anonymous white humps, which he presumed concealed two parked cars. Past the lych-gate, in the churchyard, only the tops of the more ostentatious markers showed, like black buoys in a still, white sea, and even they wore crowns of snow.

  It was as they were saying the Creed together that he noted John Copeland take his customary pew near the back by the baptismal font. His return was well timed. Earlier, Tom had wondered if he should include the Moirs in the Prayers of Intercession, to follow shortly upon the Creed. It was clear from the murmured conversations, when people began to trickle in, stamping snow from their footwear and rubbing ungloved hands for heat, that news of Will’s death had reached some in the village, though not all. Before the service began, as congregants received their copies of Common Praise and the order of service and moved to their favoured places, it was a secondary topic of neighbourly exchange. But it quickly surpassed the first—the remarkable weather—as shock and dismay travelled from pew to pew. Should he, though, acknowledge the community’s painful loss before God, when Caroline herself remained oblivious of her widowhood? Strangely, it felt like a breach of etiquette.

  John answered his question. Tom searched out the man’s grave eyes as he intoned the final words of the Creed and received a deep nod, which he took as confirmation that Caroline had been found, and had been told. With a heavy heart he said, when the moment came:

  Comfort and heal all those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit, especially Caroline Moir and her children, Adam and Ariel, who yesterday lost husband and father; give them courage and hope in their troubles; and bring them the joy of your salvation.

  Somewhere near the south window, someone released a short, sharp cry of pain.

  “Thank you for taking on that task,” Tom said to John, at last able to have a private conversation. After the Dismissal, a few were always wont to linger and chat, none more so than on such a day of peculiar weather and sad news, even though St. Nicholas’s, like the rest of the village still without electricity, was drained of welcome heat. “It can’t have been easy telling Caroline.”

  “No,” John replied without elaboration, methodically fitting copies of Common Praise back into the low shelf along the transept aisle.

  “Where did she get to in the end? Noze?”

  John nodded, nothing more. Tom could understand the man’s preoccupation. There was nothing more cheerless than the task of relaying news of the death of a loved one.

  “I expect the roads were poor.”

  “You might imagine.”

  “I hope they’ve been able to get at least a mortuary van in.”

  “Yes, finally one arrived.”

  “Good. It’s been troubling thinking of Will’s body simply lying there, in wait.”

  “Caroline is taking a little time to compose herself, then she’ll come and fetch Ariel.” John bent to rehang a hassock. “She asked me to tell you that.”

  “How is she?”

  “As you might imagine.”

  Tom sighed. He turned in the direction of the vestry to remove his vestments, then turned back. “What of Nick Stanhope, by the way?”

  “Sleeping it off somewhere, is my guess. We saw hide nor hair, not even when the mortuary people arrived. And …” A shadow crossed John’s broad features. “I’ve still got his car keys. I must get them back to him.”

  “If you like, I could give them to Caroline.”

  “It’s fine, Tom. I’ll drop them off at Thorn Court on my way back to Noze. But …” He bent for another hassock. “I think I’ll stop at the pub for a bit.”

  “Good idea,” Tom responded sympathetically. “I’d join you, but I should wait for Caroline at the vicarage.”