Eleven Pipers Piping: A Father Christmas Mystery

by C. C. Benison

  “Father, hear tell Judith Frost be bidin’ wi’ you,” he said without preliminaries.

  “Yes, she arrived out of the storm last night.” Tom took a swallow of ale and glanced over towards the TWERP members on the other side of the fireplace, which had been his intended destination. “Word does get about. She’s Judith Ingley now.”

  “Remember years back when she were a girl. Worked with Bill, ’er dad, sometimes. Up’t Thorn Court.”

  “Before it was a hotel?”

  “Aye, and after. She were a bright one, always busy. She lost ’er mam, you see, when she were born. I remember …”

  Tom was only half listening. He was counting the number of empty beer glasses on the TWERPs’ trestle tables, four of which had been pulled together. If we’re going to engage in good works, he thought, we’d best do it in daylight. It was already past three and the sun would vanish from the sky by four fifteen. But somehow, and with a modicum of guilt, he felt resistant to the notion of getting off his backside. The ale was mellowing. Sweetly scented logs from an old apple tree crackled in the fireplace, throwing up little showers of sparks now and then, which danced before his mesmerised eyes. He felt well sunk into his cushioned seat, warm and dry and soft and safe, and realised the TWERPs were sinking into the same torpor.

  “… but I ’spect she’s tol’ you all this,” Old Bob was saying.

  “No, I haven’t had time to really get to know Mrs. Ingley,” Tom responded. He shifted slightly and glanced at the text woven into the wool of Old Bob’s bobble hat, which he knew covered a knobby head bearing a few tufts of hair. “Do you follow North American ice hockey?”

  “No.” Bob patted his cap. “What do it say?”

  “DETROIT RED WINGS.”

  “Oh, it were one of Ned’s. Got it at the jumble after ’e died.”

  “If it weren’t for Ned, I mightn’t be here,” Tom reflected.

  “I remember. You took th’ funeral. I were there.”

  “So you were.”

  Almost two years earlier, five months after the death of his wife, Tom, who along with Miranda had been visiting his wife’s sister in Thornford Regis, had through force of circumstance taken the funeral at St. Nicholas’s of one Ned Skynner, a former Conservative parish clerk who had come out in a Marxist rash after a stroke. It had been the strange and sweet peace of the moment in the pulpit, looking out over the nave, radiant with shifting streams of light through stained glass, that had decided him for a rural parish, which, by another force of circumstance, turned out to be Thornford.

  “Odd,” Tom added, “I didn’t know Ned, but I wouldn’t have thought him keen on professional ice hockey.”

  “ ’E weren’t. ’E reckoned t’were some sort o’ commie outfit like.”

  “Ah, red wings. I see. Probably a fledgling group, taking flight or something.”

  “Whatever they say about Ned, he were always ’opeful—’specially after the stroke. Zat right ’ere most nights.” Bob pointed at the seat they were occupying. “We knocked about as lads, me and Bill,” he continued, “though Bill were a bit older.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “He married a lass up Tiverton way, lovely girl. She could ’ave ’ad any lad, but …”

  Old Bob trailed off. Tom saw a flicker of some ancient regret in the magnified eyes.

  “But she died fairly young, I think you were saying earlier,” he prompted.

  “Aye. Giving birth. Weren’t twenty-two, don’t think. Terrible, it were.”

  Tom felt a pang of regret for Bill Frost. Like himself, he would have been a young widower with a young daughter to raise on his own.

  “I’m not entirely clear what it is Bill Frost did.”

  “He were all round—handyman, driver, gardener, the like for old man Stanhope. He lived over t’ stables … well, garage.”

  “That explains Judith’s familiarity with the hotel.” Tom quaffed his ale. “Did he remarry? I seem to recall Judith saying she left Thornford when she was about eighteen.”

  “Aye, after ’er dad died.”

  “Good Lord, then he must have died young as well.”

  “Aye. Very young.”

  “What happened?”

  “He were up th’ tower at Thorn Court, fixin’ th’ weathercock, same one tha’s still there. It had got broke in a storm, see. I remember this—it were round time of tha’ zex scandal in London, that Profumo who left Parliament for lyin’. Aye, that were before you was born.”

  “I did read about it later, in—”

  But a peculiar noise, a combination of hissing and pinging, diverted his attention, as it did everyone else’s. Conversation trailed off as everyone looked about the room, seeking the source of fresh disaster. Then, abruptly, the wall sconces and the lamps back of the bar switched on, casting a new shine to the fire glow on the moulded beams and horsebrasses. A great hurrah erupted.

  “Three cheers for the Western Power Distributors!” shouted one voice above all.

  “I wouldn’t go that far, mate!” another voice responded to a tide of laughter. Everyone shifted in his seat to study the view outside to see if windows glowed from the cottages up Thorn Hill. They did. The atmosphere inside the pub soon grew heavy with a sense of renewed obligation to old responsibilities; at the same time, everyone seemed loath to move from the pub’s warm womb, Tom included.

  He turned back to Old Bob. “I pray you’re not going to tell me Bill fell from the tower to his death.”

  Old Bob wiped his mouth along the sleeve of his shirt. “No, Father, I wouldn’t tell you tha’, because it weren’t true.”

  “There’s a mercy.”

  “Bill didn’t fall, Father. ’E were pushed.”

  The Vicarage

  Thornford Regis TC9 6QX

  12 JANUARY

  Dear Mum,

  I know you’ll be as agast agahs shocked as I am over this, but my Yorkshire pudding came out of the Aga yesterday as flat as a flounder. I was VERY crushed. It’s the second Sunday in a row for this to happen, and the second in front of guests a guest—this one being Judith Ingley who thought the batter might have got bruised in the fridge as we had no electricity for most of Sunday, but I’m not convinced. I thought the weather might have something to do with it, as this is the stormiest January we’ve had since I can remember, but then last Sunday’s Yorkshire went all flat and the day was perfectly normal for the time of year. Mr. Christmas says I must remember the Battle of Britain and keep my chin up and if I walk through a storm I must hold my head up high and not be afraid of the dark or words to that effect and of course he’s right and so I shall, though I’m not sure if I really want to cook a joint next Sunday as beef three weeks in a row may get a bit wearying and I have a recipe for lamb that I plucked out of Woman’s Own that I’ve been wanting to try. Anyway, we shall see. The electricity came back not long before teatime yesterday, which was a great relief as I was growing concerned about all the fruit and veg I had put down in the chest freezer from last year’s harvest. How are you, Mum? I switched on the radio once the power was back and no reports of yours being out. I’ll give Aunt Gwen a phone call later today to see you’re all right, though I’m sure this letter won’t get to you for days. I expect there’ll be no post today and there won’t be any school either, which would have thrilled me to bits when I was Miranda’s age, but she was downcast when the announcement came over the radio yesterday. She likes school most times, bless her, but I think she was particularly looking forward because her whole class was to begin making lanterns for next Saturday’s Wassail. I said we might make a start at home but now I’m not sure we have anything to make a lantern of. I shall have to look in the cupboard under the stairs. Thank goodness it’s stopped snowing. It’s black as pitch out this minute, as it’s only after six o’clock, but no flakes are landing on my window ledge. I wonder if we shall have the Wassail if this snow doesn’t melt? Did I tell you that Tamara is coming down to entertain with Shanks Pony at the Wassail? It will be
lovely to see her again so soon. Jago says to tell you that she just received her results and did well in her autumn term. If Tamara is here I expect we’ll see Adam Moir again, too, as we did at lunch last Sunday. As you know he’s smitten with your granddaughter, although of course now I think on it he will come in from Noze to support his mother now his father’s gone, poor lad. Adam’s quite different, really, than his father. Not a chip off, I wouldn’t say. He more favours Caroline in looks—shorter, though fair-haired like both parents, and he’s not at all the outgoing sort like Will, or like Will was until the last while, but I’ve told you before about his being a bit moody. Actually, Mum, I think Adam’s a bit gormless. I’m not sure what Tamara sees in him, but it’s none of my business, is it. Ariel will more likely favour her mother too, at least in figure, although you can never be sure at that age. She has such thick, dark hair, almost black, quite a contrast to the other 3 Moirs. Oh, Mum, yesterday’s breakfast was hard to get through! All we adults knew what was to befall poor little Ariel, but we had to keep cheerful because it was her mother’s place to tell her, not us. Ariel was sitting beside John Copeland and he was very good with her. He never seems the type to know what to say to a child, but he rather came out of his shell on this occasion. And then Judith Ingley, our guest who I told you about in yesterday’s letter, asked Becca Kaif if she had any brothers or sisters, which is the sort of thing you might ask a little girl you didn’t know, but Becca burst into tears and it was all a bit awkward and then Molly Kaif came far too early to fetch Becca and so that the cat was set among the pigeons in a way—that is, I could see Miranda thinking something was not right. Anyway, the girls were very excited by the snow, so we bundled them up, Judith and I, and had them making a snowman in the back garden. Judith showed them what to do. They must get more snow in Staffordshire than we ever do! Anyway, I could see Miranda had got her back up a bit. I think she thinks she could figure out how to make a snowman on her own, without being told by someone! Judith does have her views, but she seems nice enough. She’s had her trials since leaving Thornford R all those years ago. She and her husband owned a residential care home in Stafford for many years, but then her husband got Parkingto Parkinson’s disease, when he was only in his 50s, and ended up in care in their very own care home! At least they were together to the end, Judith said. She didn’t have to PUT her husband into care. He died in autumn. She has a son named Tony who lives in China and doesn’t sound very helpful, and no grandchildren. She doesn’t seem to have maintained any connections with Thornford, either, but then she was an only child and so was her father, though I might look in Dad’s history to see if there’s any mention of Frosts past. Who knows? There might be second cousins or third cousins about somewhere. And I realise I’ve forgotten to ask about her mother’s people! Anyway, she was very interested in the Moirs and the Stanhopes, and asked all sorts, but that’s understandable, I suppose, as she once lived over the Thorn Court’s garage. She was surprised family still owned the hotel, though of course there was that gap after Caroline’s father sold it and took them all off to Australia. Anyway, must go and start the day, though it won’t be a normal one. Mr. C has his Monday off, but there’s deanery synod this evening, though I expect that’s cancelled now. I was going to nip into Torquay for a bit of clothes shopping, but I think we’re all marooned in the village for the foreseeable next few days. Cats are well, though I had to push them through the catflap yesterday so they would go out and do their business. I’m not having a litter box in my kitchen! Bumble loves the snow and has been trailing nothing but wet through the vicarage. He can be a very messy dog! Love to Aunt Gwen. Have a wonderful day!

  Much love,

  Madrun

  P.S. Yesterday, after lunch, Mr. Christmas had a talk with Miranda about Will Moir’s death, which must have been a hard thing to do, poor man, even if it isn’t the first time he’s had to do that awful task. I could tell from the way they were sitting on the swing in the back garden that’s what they were talking about. And afterwards, after Mr. Christmas went off to the pub, I watched Miranda take the banana off the snowman. I had given it to her for its mouth and it made the snowman look very jolly, even though it had gone black from the cold. But Miranda chipped away at the snowman’s head for a bit then and replaced the banana. Only upside down! Which made the snowman’s mouth turn down and look very very downcast, which was sad. Worse, Mitsuko Drewe came around a little later, as she’s taking photographs for one of her “art projects” of all the snowmen in the village. I said to her, if only you’d come an hour ago! But she thought it was the most interesting one she’d seen all day!

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tom pretended an interest in Country Life. He flipped past the estate agents’ adverts for million-pound homes and fine art galleries’ adverts for exquisite objets to fill said homes, and noted that Miss Isabella Pimlott, nineteen, pashmina-wrapped and flawless-skinned, was reading history of art at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford—but little else registered. He slowed his page-flipping a bit, though, when he came upon a feature story on Thornridge House, a Nash-designed jewel on fifty acres outside the village overlooking the river, owned by Colm Parry, a flash in the pop-star firmament of another era. He did let his eyes fall here and there upon its contents, speculating that Colm’s ambitious wife, Celia, was the likely force behind this peacock display of acquisition. Yes, there was a picture of the façade and another of one of the reception rooms, and the dining room, and another of the gun room, which Tom had never visited, and there were two of the magnificent gardens that were Colm’s real passion. And there was Colm, who was music director and organist for St. Nicholas’s Church in Thornford Regis. It said so, right on page forty-two. The issue was two years old, and so it had been printed in a happier time for Colm, before the death of his daughter, last spring. This bitter January day in England, Colm, Celia, and their son were sunning themselves in Barbados, while Tom was ensconced in the lobby of Thorn Court Country Hotel, trying not to let his attention be drawn by the raised voices on the other side of the wall, in the hotel’s office.

  He had rung, once, but, like Judith Ingley on Saturday night, he had not been heard. He earlier tried the Annex; the front door was left open to the chilly air, as if someone had departed in a hurry, and when he called, a small figure, Ariel, emerged from the hall’s shadows, her eyes brightening for the time it took a candle flame to flare, then die. In his battered Barbour, his back to the blaze of snow-white light, he realised that in silhouette he might be any male, her father returned perhaps, and his heart went out to her. He quickly learned—without asking—that Mummy had gone next door, and before he could offer any words of kindness, Ariel had vanished back into the hall’s gloom. Tom gently closed the door and slogged through old footprints to the hotel entrance, noting that among the cars parked outside the old stable block only one—Judith’s, he presumed—remained an inert mound of snow.

  That Caroline had most likely been summoned by her brother was evident in the first clear words to reach his ears. The tone was agonised but laced with fury: “I must get back to Ariel! There’s no need to talk about this now!”

  Nick’s response was lost in a baritone rumble.

  Then Caroline again: “You are not a partner in this enterprise. You loaned Will and me money—and we’re grateful and we’ll pay you back—but the decisions are ours. Mine! You’ve no business snooping into our accounts!”

  “Look, Caro …” Nick’s voice, now audible, rose menacingly. “I need some bloody money and I need it soon, do you understand? It’s a matter of life and death!”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic! How could it be?”

  Again, Nick’s voice was lost.

  Caroline’s fell, too, until Tom heard her snap: “Well, I believe, Nick, that where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

  “And now you have no Will.”

  “Of course I have a will. We both have wills.”

  “I meant your husband—Will—is gone.”
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br />   Tom could hear the sneer in Nick’s voice, and felt his own temper rise in the beat before Caroline cried, “Stop it, Nick! Where did you learn to be so absolutely heartless?”

  “I’m merely pointing out the truth, aren’t I? How do you think you’re going to run this bloody money-pit of a hotel on your own? Without Will’s drive? Sell the bloody thing! Moorgate Properties is prepared to make you an offer.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “I know, that’s all.”

  “They’d never get planning permission.”

  “Oh, wouldn’t they? I can think of one anti no longer on the parish council: your husband!”

  “Nick, I’m not selling to anyone. This is my home!”

  “Then I know of some private investors.”

  “Would they be the same toads who have invested in your company, Nick? I know exactly their game. You won’t have yours for long if you deal with the likes of them.”

  “Look, Caro, you’re going to have to do something! There’s the insurance money, yes? We both know Will’s worth more dead than—”

  “How dare you! Are you suggesting—?”

  “Wait a minute, I’m getting a call.”

  Sound from the office fell to a muttering. Tom closed the magazine with a thought to slipping out of the hotel, then reentering, as if his witness to this cringe-making conversation could be rubbed from his mind. But then the door opened abruptly. Nick was visible, half turned, sliding one arm into a businesslike black Burberry.