Eleven Pipers Piping: A Father Christmas Mystery

by C. C. Benison

  “We had had an argument. I can’t remember what it was about now. Something silly. Regina’s illness seemed to make her even more moody. Despairing one moment, euphoric the next. Hateful, then begging forgiveness. She was frantic I was going to abandon her. And usually during these episodes, I would go out and work on the estate and be back in a few hours when she had calmed down. But this particular day—it was a Sunday afternoon in November, the middle of the shooting season—instead of even just going for a walk or going out to one of the outbuildings to play my pipes, I took the car into Torquay.” He threw his next dart with sudden ferocity; it hit the wire and fell to the floor. His face reddened. “It was an impulse. I was worn out.

  “Before I walked out the door, she said she was going to jump off St. Hilda’s tower if I hadn’t returned by supper.” John paused, then went to retrieve his darts. “Even though the castle is closed in winter, we had a set of keys to the grounds. But she had cried wolf too many times. I didn’t believe her, and the castle is a good walk away, and she was still weak from her last round of chemotherapy.

  “One of the lads patrolling the castle grounds found her at the base of the stairs up to the tower the next morning.”

  Tom said a swift and silent prayer for the soul of Regina Copeland. “John, I’m sure you did everything you could do.”

  John was silent a moment, rolling the darts in his fingers. “That wasn’t Hugh’s view.”

  “Yes?”

  “The circumstances were … different, I didn’t disagree with Hugh there. Regina had had these … melodramatic episodes in the past, as I said, but always ensuring—consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know—that she would be rescued. And she always did these things at home. But threatening to jump off the castle tower was strange—I should have paid attention. And then her doing it. It’s a half-mile walk. It was November. It was cold and mizzly, getting on for dark by four.” John shook his head, as if to shake off a memory. “Hugh blamed me for not being home, for not getting home in time, for not allowing myself to be emotionally blackmailed, again. Worse, he got it into his head that it was no accident.”

  “You don’t mean …”

  “Yes, he suggested to police that I may have pushed her down the stairs.”

  Startled, Tom turned his attention from the dartboard. “But you were in Torquay, were you not? How could you be involved?”

  “Tom, it takes less than half an hour to drive from Torquay to Noze. I could have driven home and been back to Torquay in short order.”

  “But—good heavens—surely someone in Torquay would have been able to identify you. Put you in Torquay at the time of your wife’s death.”

  “An alibi.”

  “Yes.”

  “I did have an alibi.” John paused and lifted a dart. “And I didn’t.”

  Tom stepped from the pub into the cold, bitter air and glanced upwards as he held the door ajar for John. The night sky, pricked with stars, decanted into the coal blackness of the village, punctuated by squares of window light here and there winding up the hills. The hour was late. He didn’t need his watch to tell him so: He could read the story in the arrangement of illuminated windows in the vicarage, a shadow looming past the low stone wall across Church Walk. Three gold squares below the roof proclaimed Madrun’s waking presence in her private flat, but no light escaped from the floor below, where his daughter slept. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, he felt a stab of regret for his evening absences from Miranda’s bedtime routine, but he could do nothing but let the feeling pass and thank God for his wise child’s understanding. He looked to the windows of the ground floor where light behind sheer curtains cast a glow over a remnant snowdrift half covering the rosebushes below the sill—a lamp in the sitting room for the master’s return. Judith, he presumed, had gone to bed—but no, for as he and John descended the few stairs to the cobbles of Church Walk and turned towards Poynton Shute, Judith emerged into the circle of light afforded by the pub’s security lamp, shining her torch in front of her.

  “You’re out late,” Tom called to her.

  “Visiting old friends,” Judith called back, shining her torch on them, one to the other. “Are you coming?”

  “Shortly. Go on ahead. We have a … something we have to do first.”

  “Oh, Mr. Copeland, I thought I might pay a visit to Noze Lydiard.” She moved under the light.

  “I’m afraid the castle is closed to visitors in the winter.”

  “That’s all right. I visited it many times when I was a girl. What I meant was the estate, where you work.”

  “Well …”

  “I’ve never been on a shooting estate, you see. There wasn’t one at Noze when I was young.”

  “I’m not sure there would be much of interest to a … a …”

  “To a woman?” Judith peered up at him, then glanced at Tom as if seeking an ally.

  “Well …” John frowned, clearly discomfited. “We have an American syndicate coming on Monday and we’re booked through to the end of the season.”

  “Then Sunday—afternoon? Lovely. I’ll see you then, if I don’t see you in church earlier.”

  Judith waved and continued towards the vicarage gate.

  “Sorry,” Tom murmured, feeling the need to apologise for his guest’s behaviour.

  “Bloody cheek.”

  “You could have said no.”

  “She caught me off guard.”

  “Well, best we don’t go to the vicarage to talk. Let’s go into the church for a minute.” He felt in the pocket of his Barbour. “I’ve got the copy keys. Fred will have closed up hours ago. Have you got your torch?”

  “Any word on a new verger?” John pulled the instrument from his coat pocket and switched it on, sending a beam of light along the cobbles.

  “If you had been at the PCC meeting Tuesday evening, you’d know.”

  “I’m very sorry. I had something that needed doing.”

  Tom regretted his waspish tone. “It’s all right. Briony tells me she’s about finished the minutes, so you should have a copy emailed before long. Anyway, no, we’re no further in attracting a new verger. I miss Sebastian,” he added, referring to the previous incumbent. “He somehow fit the contours of the role. Fred means well. I can’t fault him too much, but he does lack a certain … something. He’s absolutely swimming in the verger’s gown, and I’m not sure it’s worth the expense having a new one fitted for him.”

  “At least he doesn’t pinch the church silver.”

  “No, that’s a blessing.”

  Fred Pike, village handyman, sexton, and general all-round good egg, was also the village kleptomaniac, a bent Thornfordites forgave and accommodated by trading back the purloined objects or selling them at fund-raising events for the church.

  The two walked on in silence through the lych-gate and scrunched down the pea shingle path towards St. Nicholas’s north porch. With the end of the pub quiz—with the prize-giving attended by much cheering—conversation in the Church House Inn had fallen swiftly to a sedate murmur, no damper to private and candid conversation. They had said their good-byes to Eric Swan, the landlord.

  John aimed his torch on the ancient lock of the north door; Tom turned the key and pushed the great slab of oak open into the dark, then, groping, pushed the interior door into the charcoal gloom of the nave where column, wall, and pew blended into a single dormant mass. The air was glacial cold, an amalgam of ice and dust. When he had said his evening office in the chancel at six thirty he hadn’t bothered to switch on the heating system.

  “The vestry would be best,” he said to John, who aimed his torch along the flagstones of the ancient floor. “There’s the old space heater in there.”

  Unconcerned with aesthetics had been the moderniser who had installed fluorescent light in the vestry ceiling. The three bars flicked and buzzed after Tom pressed the switch, then cast a shocking glare over the lime-washed walls, garishly bleaching the tiny room’s detritus: t
he litter of papers and old magazines, the stacks of frayed hymnals, the jumble of cleaning supplies, the boxes of candles, the bursting of clerical clothing peeking from a full corner closet. Under its pitiless blue-white brilliance, too, skin appeared pale and grey. Tom could see the unflattering effect on his own face in the clouded old wood-frame mirror over the vestry table before he crouched to activate the heater, then again in John’s when he turned to face him. They stood, as even the single chair in the vestry supported a tower of books.

  “I was telling you in the pub,” John began, “that I had an alibi for the time of my wife’s death. And that I didn’t.”

  Tom nodded, waited.

  “I booked a room at the Imperial—”

  “Yes.”

  “—and stayed over.”

  “Then …” Tom shrugged, puzzled, “you had a credit card receipt. A waiter remembered you from the dining room …”

  John shook his head. “I was only in the bar for a while. You see … I met a woman.”

  “Ah.” Tom leaned his back into the edge of the vestry table. “I think I get the picture, John. But then wouldn’t she be your alibi?”

  “I only had her Christian name, you see, and even that, it turns out, wasn’t real. She was in Torquay for a conference.”

  “Well, I suppose I should make some priestly remarks about infidelity, but … I must say, John, you work fast.”

  “It wasn’t me who worked fast,” John protested. “She was the one who invited me to her room.”

  “ ‘No thank you’ is always an option.”

  “I lost my head. I know it was wrong, but after years of misery living with Regina … and she was beautiful, a stunner.”

  “You’re saying this woman couldn’t be found.”

  “No, she couldn’t. There were hundreds at the conference. The Imperial is enormous. Big staff. Lots of guests milling about. You know, you’ve been there, I’m sure.”

  “Aren’t there security cameras in the halls?”

  “This is nearly a dozen years ago. Security was less of a concern.”

  “Or CCTV clocking you leaving the parking area?”

  John shrugged. “I think the police thought my involvement in Regina’s death was a bit of a half-baked idea. They were only being goaded by Hugh.”

  “There was an inquest, of course. What was the ruling?”

  John looked away. “The coroner ruled an open verdict.”

  Which meant, Tom considered, that insufficient evidence had been found for suicide or accident or unlawful killing. In the eyes of the law, John was not yet free and clear of culpability. He took a full breath and said, “I can understand how distressing it can be to go through this sort of process.” Tom gave a passing thought to the aftermath of his own wife’s murder—the questions, the suspicions—and felt again a shiver of distaste. “I suppose it got in the papers.”

  “Some. The legend that Noze Lydiard Castle is haunted by ghosts who lure people to St. Hilda’s tower and to their death didn’t help.”

  “I can imagine. You said earlier that your wife’s death bore some relation to—”

  “It has to do with my alibi. You see, years later—five years, to be precise—I happened to meet the woman I’d been with that night.”

  “Yes …?”

  “It was at Upper Coombe Farm where Dave Shapley has his barbecues for the band in the summer. Will Moir had joined the Thistle But Mostly Rose that spring and since the invitation included wives or partners, he came with his wife.” He paused. “Caroline Moir was the woman I’d been with.”

  Tom allowed an affect of surprise to play over his features, but he supposed he wasn’t very convincing, for John folded his arms and said, “You don’t seem … shocked.”

  “I am a little,” Tom allowed. He didn’t wish to say he knew the Moirs had had at least one significant bad patch in their marriage. Was this Torquay episode cause or effect? “But it hasn’t escaped the notice of some of the women in the church that you appear to have a soft spot for Caroline.”

  John looked off towards the lancet window, his silence assent.

  “Did you ask Caroline to confirm to authorities that you couldn’t have driven back to Noze that night and pushed your wife down the castle stairs?”

  “No, I didn’t. How could I involve her in something so sordid?”

  “Then …?”

  “There’s something more, Tom.” John twisted the cap in his hands. “Ariel is my child.”

  Tom started. “What are you talking about?”

  “She is. I know it. Think about her. Think about what she looks like.”

  Tom wished to resist this speculation, but, unbidden, Ariel Moir’s face shimmered into consciousness. He had seen her at play with Miranda many times, and in the company of Will or Caroline many times, too. Yes, it was true, Ariel did not appear, like her brother, Adam, to be a variation on the familial theme of litheness and blondness. Yes, she was dark-haired and sturdy-bodied. Yes, possibly, she could be a tiny female edition of the dark, sturdy-bodied, ruddy-faced man before him, but only possibly, where folk were swimming in the same crammed Anglo-Saxon-Celtic gene pool.

  “But, John, all children don’t look a match to their parents. Would you say Miranda is my spitting image? She looks more identifiably like her mother, but I am as assured as any man can be that I am her father. What on earth has put this idea into your head?”

  “Being at the vicarage Sunday confirmed it for me. Sitting at breakfast with Ariel. But I’ve wondered before, when I’ve glimpsed her with Caroline bringing her to Sunday school. It’s there! It’s in her face, in her gestures. I’m her father.”

  “You’re not her father, John. It doesn’t matter if you made some … genetic contribution. By law, a woman’s husband is the father of her child. Will Moir is Ariel’s father.”

  “But Will is dead.”

  The words fell between them like a sword.

  “That changes nothing,” Tom countered heatedly. The nasty thought that John had rid himself of Will in order to claim his woman and his child tore across his consciousness. “Will’s death doesn’t provide you with a claim to his child. It’s outrageous to trouble Caroline with this—now, with Will not even buried. Don’t tell me you’ve actually broached this with Caroline? Oh, Lord, you have. I can read it in your face.”

  “I’m thinking of Ariel,” John protested, his face reddening again.

  “That’s why you weren’t at Tuesday’s meeting, yes? You were at Thorn Court with Caroline. How can you say you’re thinking of Ariel? Any sort of inkling of this—at this time—would hurt and confuse the girl terribly. John, have you lost your mind?”

  “What would happen if something happened to Caroline?”

  “What could happen to Caroline? She’s still a young woman.”

  “And Will was a reasonably young man.”

  “He was a healthy young man until someone poisoned him, John.”

  “What would happen if something happened to Caroline?” John persisted. “Who would take care of Ariel?”

  “But it’s none of your business.”

  “But who?”

  Tom released an exasperated sigh. He knew Will had no living parents, no siblings. But Caroline wasn’t bereft.

  “Caroline’s mother,” he said.

  “She’s elderly and living on the other side of the world.”

  “There’s Nick.”

  “Would you be happy seeing a court award Ariel to Nick Stanhope’s care?”

  “Adam.”

  “He’s barely out of childhood himself. Too immature to raise a child.”

  “You work with him.”

  “That’s how I know.”

  “John, I’ll grant you the possibility that something could remove Caroline from the picture. Something could take any of us, couldn’t it? We could be hit by a car speeding down a lane. But I can’t grant the probability. I’m not sure what you want me to do.”

  “My hope is that Caroline
will tell you it’s true.”

  “That you’re Ariel’s father? Which, I take, she didn’t countenance Tuesday.”

  “Yes.”

  “But to what end, John?”

  “So that Ariel will be safe.”

  “That seems both vague and fraught.”

  “I can’t say more.”

  “Besides the inappropriateness of mentioning any of this conversation to Caroline, it’s the urgency that eludes me.”

  “I’m afraid, Tom, it doesn’t elude me.”

  The Vicarage

  Thornford Regis TC9 6QX

  16 JANUARY

  Dear Mum,

  It was so lovely to get another letter from you. I know how hard it is for you to put pen to paper what with your arthritis and all, but your words cheered me so. Yes, I did flush the yewberries down the loo. There were about six quarts of them left in the big freezer. I thought no matter what was to come from the inquest I best not keep such things at the vicarage. I began to worry that Miranda might root through the freezer one day and something dreadful happen, though of course it wouldn’t because I am so careful, but still, I wouldn’t want to go through what I’ve gone through this week all over again. No sooner had Mr. Christmas left for town yesterday afternoon when the two detectives from Totnes arrived at the vicarage to talk to me about my baking and other things. They were the same two who parked themselves in the village last spring after poor Sybella Parry was found dead in that huge drum in the village hall, one of them named Blessing, who it turns out is a younger brother of the Sandra Blessing I went to school with and now does something at the Dartmoor National Park Authority. I got the sense that they weren’t best pleased that I had got rid of the berries, but I told them they wouldn’t have found a single seed in any of them. They wondered what I did with the seeds after I picked them and prepared them for freezing and I told them that they went down the loo, too. Had I ever ground the seeds into a mash or dried them and made them into a powder or such, they asked, and of course I said no because of what possible use could that be, though it did occur to me afterwards perhaps ground yew seeds might prove useful against mice, although we have Powell and Gloria guarding the vicarage against vermin so really it would be a waste of time. The reason they asked is that at the inquest yesterday morning, the pith pathologist said poor Will Moir had rather a lot of yew poison in him. (There’s a proper name for it, but I can’t remember.) I didn’t go to the inquest, as I said I wouldn’t, but Mr. Christmas did and came back and told me about it as I was making lunch (a very nice omelet). Terrible to say in a way, but I felt relieved. No one could possibly believe I would leave a whole lot of the bad bits of the berry in my pastry, I thought, and said so to Mr. C and he agreed with me, though I had a wobble when the detectives came later and looked at me as if I had deliberately put a whole lot of the bad bits in my pastry and began asking me questions about my “relationship” with the Moirs, as if I had one. I told them they were a very handsome couple and a great asset to the village and that I knew of no one who wished them any harm. They took away the note I told you about, the one asking me to send some pastries over to the Burns Supper, slipped it into a little plastic bag like the ones I use for Miranda’s sandwiches for school. I told them I hadn’t a clue who’d sent it. I was glad when they left. I told myself I mustn’t worry and Mr. Christmas says I mustn’t worry, but I still feel a bit shattered, truth be told. After Mr. C gave me the news of the inquest I thought perhaps I would go ahead and contribute something to the baking stall at tomorrow’s Wassail, but after the police left, I thought better of it, as perhaps it might not be bought. I shall attend the Wassail, though, Mum. I’m not having people wondering why I’m not there, as I am every year. Besides, it will be Miranda’s first Wassail and she is so looking forward to it, and I suggested to Judith—our guest, as I’ve mentioned—that she might enjoy it and she said she was keen to go, as she remembered it when she was a girl. Yesterday, after the police left, I went with Judith to the Tidy Dolly, which she is thinking of buying. What with all the snow, it’s taken this long for an estate agent from Leitchfield Turner to make herself available! Anyway, the agent who was named Gillian was really quite chatty. She knew all kinds of things about Thornford. I’m not sure how interested Judith is really about taking on the tearoom, but she had some firm questions for Gillian about how much trade the tearoom gets and would have to look at the books and of course the economy isn’t up to much these days, and who knows if there will be fewer coach tours this summer, but Gillian was very “positive” as these estate agents always are and pointed out that as many as 20 new cottages were going up in the heart of the village before very long, meaning perhaps 60 or 80 more folk living and trading in the village, which would boost trade at the Tidy Dolly. I knew she meant Thorn Court and said it was just an old rumour that someone wanted to buy the land and turn it into housing, but she said she had heard that with Will Moir passed away, the widow was selling. I said I didn’t think so as Caroline so loves the place she spent her childhood in, but Gillian said one of the investors was owed a lot of money and wanted it back and the only way to get it was to sell. That could only be Nick Stanhope, I thought, as I’ve heard from Tamara who had heard it from Adam Moir that Nick put money into Thorn Court when the Moirs bought it, though it wouldn’t surprise me he wanted the money back as I hear he has debts of his own. I thought to myself that surely money troubles would at least be behind Caroline now, as Will must be insured in some fashion, and Nick could probably have his money if he were so keen to have it. I asked if the investor were Nick Stanhope and she said yes. She said she knows folk at Moorgate Properties who told her Nick is angling to be an exclusive supplier of security systems to the new homes they’re building all over south Devon. I thought that was a bit rich, Nick cosying up to a company that wants to do his sister out of her home. Judith said nothing about the Stanhopes would surprise her and that they all had a streak of ruthlessness about them. What’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh, she said. I don’t think Judith is very fond of the Stanhopes. The other day she told me a story her father told her about Caroline’s grandfather great-grandfather Rupert going about the village on his horse and setting his whip on folk who got in his way. Do you know any of this, Mum? Of course you wouldn’t. This was before the Great War. But then there are stories about Caroline’s father and women who weren’t his wife, aren’t there? And old Arthur Stanhope ran roughshod over his staff, they used to say, so maybe there’s some truth to it, though I think Caroline Moir is really quite lovely. Judith went up to Thorn Court yesterday evening saying she was going to pay her respects to Caroline, which I thought was a bit odd as Judith had left Thornford before Caroline was born, but then Judith’s family worked for the Stanhopes for generations. Anyway, I had gone up to bed before she returned, so I assume they had a good natter. I haven’t faced Caroline myself. I did send a casserole up with Mr. Christmas earlier in the week, but I didn’t know then how Will had died, so now I can’t help thinking how inapropr inapproppr poor a gesture that was. Karla is quite adiman firm that I’m guilty of nothing more than not questioning anonymouse requests for baking contributions, which of course I will do in the future. Anyway, I believe Mr. C is going up to Thorn Court this morning to discuss funeral arrangements with Caroline, so perhaps he’ll know better the state of her mind in the wake of this unhappy event, which reminds me that I must give him Becca Kaif’s torch to take back, as I found it under the sofa when I was hoovering the carpet yesterday. I’m not sure if I ought to go to the funeral, though I always find funerals so soothing. Bit of odd news, Mum, before I sign off. I went through the churchyard yesterday morning to take your letter to the post office. You don’t very often see anyone there on a weekday morning in winter other than Fred on occasion, digging a grave or tidying the grass, but I noticed this tall woman in a long black fur coat near the bottom of the graveyard where Sybella was buried last year. You remember Oona Blanc, Colm Parry’s ex-wife, the model,
who disgraced herself at her own daughter’s funeral last spring? I didn’t think women like that got up before noon and what on earth would she be doing down here in January? She was wearing sunglasses, and who wears sunglasses on the sorts of grey days we get in winter unless they’re famous? But no one believed me at the post office. “Is there a great ruddy limousine parked out on Church Walk?” old Mr. Snell said, as if models only get about in limousines, silly man, but even Karla said Oona’d have to have dropped from the sky not to be noted coming into the village, which is probably true, though Mr. C said some type of sports car nearly ran Roger and him over in Pennycross Road Saturday night. I went back to the vicarage down Poynton Shute and looked at the registration marks on the number plates to see if any were from London, but there wasn’t a one, so I suppose I could be wrong. I must say, Mum, I haven’t had the best week, what with more flat Yorkshires, folk going off my lovely food, and now them thinking I’m having halloocin halucinn going mad. Anyway, as you always say, this too shall pass. Must get on with things now. We’re all otherwise well here, cats included, and Bumble, and I hope you are, too. Love to Aunt Gwen.