Village Affairs

by Cassandra Chan

  Bingham’s grave had been filled in and covered over with fresh turves by the sexton, but he had had no time, he explained, to clear up the litter. He had sounded quite aggrieved about it, and the vicar had decided that the wisest course might be for him to lend a hand himself. That, of course, was before he had actually seen the graveyard.

  It was amazing how much litter a crowd could leave behind, but it was not only that. The grass was trampled and dug up in places, the gravel of the path was spread everywhere but where it belonged, and, worst of all, two of the oldest gravestones had been toppled by people attempting to stand on them.

  “I can see what Harry meant,” said Tothill, referring to the sexton.

  “Well,” said Leandra, sighing, “if we pick up the litter, Harry will probably do the rest. We’d better make a start.”

  She produced a large plastic bin bag and moved forward purposefully. “God,” she said, bending to collect several cigarette ends, “I’ll be glad when this is over.”

  “It’s more or less over,” said Tothill, following her example. “Eve is leaving tomorrow or next day, and then things will begin to settle down.”

  Leandra shook her head. “No,” she said, “it won’t be over ’til they find out who killed Charlie. If they ever do,” she added glumly, pitching an empty soda can with unnecessary force into the bag.

  Tothill sat back on his heels and gazed at her, thinking, as always, how lovely she was, even stooping in an old brown coat to pick up garbage. He was a sensitive man and, as his wife’s happiness meant a great deal to him, he naturally paid attention to her thoughts and feelings. He could not protect her from feeling sorrow at Charlie’s death, any more than she could protect him, but for the first time he began to sense that the tragedy had affected her more deeply. They had both liked Charlie and he did not think Leandra felt the loss more than himself, but she seemed more troubled by the manner of the man’s death. She had, now he considered it, been on edge ever since they had heard it was murder. That was terrible, of course, the more so in a small village like this, but in truth Tothill did not think it very likely that any of the villagers had murdered gregarious, well-liked Charlie. Perhaps, he thought, still gazing at his wife, women were more sensitive to any kind of violence.

  “Richard,” said Leandra sharply, “we will never get on if we don’t both work at it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized, moving into action again. “I was thinking about how charming you look. Have I mentioned today that I love you?”

  She laughed at him. “I would be better pleased if you would prove it by helping me pick this stuff up. Talk is cheap, you know.”

  “Righto,” he said, tossing a chewing gum wrapper into the bag.

  The weather was turning colder. Bethancourt tightened the belt of his cashmere coat as he stood in the gardens of Stutely Manor and peered about in search of his dog. They had stayed out in the wooded hills rather later than Bethancourt had intended and it had grown dark by the time they had reached the gardens, making it easy for Cerberus to slip off to investigate an interesting scent without his master noticing until it was too late.

  Bethancourt sighed and began to whistle when he was interrupted by the ringing of his mobile phone. He dug it out of his pocket and examined the number on the back-lit screen, flicking the phone on at once when he recognized Gibbons’s number.

  “What cheer?” he asked, hoping for news.

  “Not much,” came the answer. “Carmichael decided we needed a decent meal if we were going to spend the night searching through traffic photos, so we’re waiting for a table. He decided to ring his wife and I said I’d ring you.”

  “I’m glad I rate so high,” said Bethancourt, “but I’m sorry about the traffic pictures. There was nothing new, then?”

  “Nothing,” affirmed Gibbons in gloomy tones. “Nobody could place the Morris in the square that night, and everyone we’ve talked to all day long has agreed with the Benson twins and Mrs. Potts: Joan and Charlie were a very quiet, happy couple.”

  Bethancourt considered this as he lit a cigarette. “That’s somehow not what I’d expected,” he said slowly. “Still,” he added more cheerfully, “outsiders never know everything that goes on in a relationship.”

  Gibbons snorted. “That does me a lot of good,” he said. “That just breaks the case wide open, that does.”

  “Well, it’s true,” said Bethancourt, rather hurt.

  “It may be, but it’s also unprovable,” Gibbons said, and then sighed. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m tired and hungry, that’s all. Oh, look, there’s the waiter. Sir? Yes, yes, we’re just coming.”

  “You’d better ring off,” said Bethancourt. “Have a good meal.”

  “Yes, thanks. Sir, the table’s ready … no, I’ll get that—”

  The phone went dead in Bethancourt’s hand.

  He replaced it in his pocket thoughtfully, and blew a long stream of smoke out into the chill evening air. He had been thinking to himself earlier that the Bensons and Martha Potts were unreliable witnesses where Joan Bonnar was concerned, and that it was entirely possible that her relationship with Bingham had begun to go sour. He had known of other cases where the decision to marry had ultimately resulted in a decision to break up. But Gibbons’s report shed new light on that theory: was it truly reasonable to suspect several different witnesses who all said the same thing? And despite what he had told his friend, was it any more reasonable to suppose that no hint of a trouble so deep that it had led to murder had come to anyone’s notice?

  Bethancourt smoked pensively, hardly noticing that his fingers were becoming chilled as he paced slowly up and back along the gravel path. It was possible, he supposed, that Bingham had attempted to back out of the marriage. In someone sufficiently egotistical, pride could be a powerful motivator, and for all the turbulence of her previous affairs, Joan Bonnar had always been the one who left the men in her life, not the other way around.

  The trouble with that theory was that he could not come up with a time when Bingham could have told Joan of his doubts. If it had occurred the weekend before his death, why should he then have gone to see her—in a cheery mood, according to Peg Eberhart—the next Sunday? And if he had made up his mind to tell her on the day he died, it was ridiculous to suppose Joan Bonnar would have resorted to her sedative to do away with him on the spur of the moment. Quite apart from the difficulty of administration, poison was not the weapon of choice for a crime passionel.

  He sighed and ground his cigarette out beneath his heel. He did not think the massive quantities of beer he had imbibed with Astley-Cooper after the funeral were doing his thinking processes any good. Or possibly, he thought with more confidence, there was something they were missing.

  Along the rear facade of the manor, the outdoor lights went on, momentarily blinding him, just as Cerberus came bounding up, panting happily. Looking down, Bethancourt could just make out that the dog had found a patch of mud somewhere; his paws were leaving a black trail behind him.

  “Clarence will never let you into the house like that, old boy,” Bethancourt told the dog, who wagged his tail. “You’ll have to have a paddle in the fountain to clean you off. Come on, let’s get in.”

  All was quiet at the old farmhouse. Watkinson had returned to town that afternoon, but Joan had elected to stay on. Dinner had been a strained and silent meal, with Joan looking red-eyed and wan, and the twins unusually quiet. There was a feeling in the air that once again Joan’s unrestrained love affairs had brought unwelcome upheaval into their lives. Joan herself was not insensitive to this and retired upstairs after dinner with a bottle of whisky. The irritant of her presence removed, Mrs. Potts was determined not to let Julie and James continue to sulk. She cleared the dishes away and left the washing up ’til later. Instead, she retraced her steps to the study where the twins were whispering together on the sofa.

  “How about a game of Scrabble?” she asked, smiling cheerfully.

  They glanced at each
other.

  “It’s not a bad idea,” said Julie slowly.

  “All right,” said James. “I’ll get out the board.”

  They settled around the old card table, while James produced a dictionary and a pad and pencil.

  “There we are,” he said, pulling out a chair. “All set.”

  “That’s right,” said Mrs. Potts, shaking the bag vigorously before selecting her tiles. “This is just what I wanted after all the fuss today—a nice, quiet evening.”

  “She’ll have to go back tomorrow,” said Julie, “and then things will get back to normal.”

  “I just hope she doesn’t volunteer me to drive her,” said James.

  “I doubt that,” said Mrs. Potts calmly. “You know your mother likes to drive—always has. Are you ready yet, Julie?”

  “Mmm.” Julie shifted a tile and then looked up at them, a pleased twinkle in her eye. “I’m ready,” she said, and laid out all her tiles on the board.

  “Oh, God,” said James. “Not a seven-letter word first thing. I can’t stand it.”

  Julie merely giggled and looked triumphant.

  “‘Loiters’,” spelled out Mrs. Potts resignedly, taking up her pencil and adding the fifty-point bonus to the total. It was a discouraging start to the game, especially since Julie usually won anyway, but Mrs. Potts didn’t care. It was the first time in days that she had seen either of the twins look so cheerful.

  Gibbons arrived home very late and in a thoroughly depressed mood. He had been rather looking forward to getting a pint at his local pub before retiring, but it was long past closing by the time they finally found a photo of Bingham’s Morris and he was allowed to go home. They now had proof that Bingham had been in London on the day of his death, and in the general neighborhood of Joan Bonnar’s town house. It did not feel like much of a triumph.

  His flat was a small one, but he had bought some new furniture for it over the past summer, when he had thought it would not be long before he would have a different kind of life awaiting his return from a long day’s work. That he would have had a larger, more comfortable home was not among his foremost regrets, but at times like this, even that loss loomed large, perhaps because it was an easier one to deal with than the remembrance of the woman he had once thought would be here to welcome him.

  He tried, as he did most every night, to put all that out of his mind. He removed his jacket and hung it up carefully, as if domestic tidiness might make up for complete failure as a detective and as a man. He switched on the standing lamp beside his armchair and was just on the point of sitting down when he remembered that there was a nearly full carton of butter-pecan ice cream in the freezer. Armed with this and a spoon, he returned to the sitting room and switched on the television, flicking through the channels until he found a rugby game in progress. Gibbons did not much care for rugby—football and cricket were his games—but he watched the game doggedly until its finish. By that time, the ice cream was gone.

  He turned off the television and went to bed, where he lay awake in the darkness, ferociously trying to think of ways in which to further their investigation. As he finally began to drift toward sleep, his subconscious took over and suggested a solution that, while not practical, at least enabled him to drop off. It had to do with finding a bloodstained knife in Joan Bonnar’s town house.

  Chief Inspector Carmichael, being unconcerned with promotion— in fact, retirement was not so very far down the road these days—and being much more accustomed to difficult cases, spent a pleasant evening with his wife. He had missed her while he was in Chipping Chedding; he found he missed her more of late when he had to go away. Still, there was no denying that she was fast asleep by his side long before he himself succeeded in turning his mind off and settling down for the night.

  Bethancourt, having thoroughly muddied the water in the Stutely Manor fountain in the process of cleaning his dog’s paws, ate a substantial English meal with Astley-Cooper and discussed the wool market. After supper, they ventured out to the Sheep’s Head pub, where they continued their discussion, now joined by various worthies, and Bethancourt, in a leisurely way, began to pick the burrs out of Cerberus’s coat. All in all, Bethancourt enjoyed the evening very much, and was understandably reluctant to break his mood when Gibbons rang to fill him in on the lack of progress in the case. He sought his bed early afterward, taking a book to read himself to sleep, which he did quite shortly in a very contented frame of mind. It is always nice to have various interests and to be able to keep them separate in one’s mind.

  CHAPTER 13

  At 10:15 the next morning Constable Stikes was sorting through the messages on her desk in the Stow-on-the-Wold police station, trying to pick up the threads of her usual routine, which the Bingham murder had thrown into chaos. She had been somewhat miffed at the revelation of Joan Bonnar as Bingham’s girlfriend after she had put in so much work on compiling a reasonable list of tourists whom Bingham might have been dating. It was also annoying that the idea of Joan Bonnar had never once occurred to her, even though she had been well aware of the fact that the star had been spending more time than usual in Chipping Chedding over the past few months.

  The investigation apparently having been shifted firmly to London, Stikes had dealt as best she could with the chaos of the funeral yesterday and with the rash of petty thievery which broke out in its aftermath, and had earmarked today for a return to normal. She was a bit late starting, owing to a broken alarm clock, but she felt all the better for the extra hour’s sleep and there was, as it turned out, nothing urgent awaiting her.

  She was just deciding on a schedule for the day when she was interrupted by a call from James Benson up at the old farmhouse. He sounded quite distracted, but Stikes put that down to the fact that his sister was probably standing at his shoulder, putting in her own ideas every time he paused for breath. Everyone in Chipping Chedding knew who wore the trousers at the old farmhouse.

  Gradually, however, Benson’s message become clear. His mother was missing—they had searched everywhere and couldn’t find her, and her car was still there. Stikes said she would come at once and rang off, all thoughts of a normal day fleeing from her mind. As she ran for her car, she pulled out the number for Detective Chief Inspector Carmichael and punched it into her mobile phone.

  At 10:25, Gibbons was cooling his heels in Emily Redston’s office. The secretary had been very apologetic—Mrs. Redston had missed her train, but would take the next one and be in the office by eleven, probably a little sooner. Gibbons had decided to wait. He was making small talk with the secretary when his mobile rang, and he excused himself to answer it.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” said Carmichael. “Have you finished with the Redston woman?”

  “No, sir,” replied Gibbons. “She’s running late. She should be in by eleven, though, and I thought I’d wait.”

  “We can send O’Leary to see her,” said Carmichael gruffly. “I’ve had a call from Chipping Chedding. Joan Bonnar’s gone missing. No, you stay there. I’ll get the Rover out and pick you up on the way. Meet me in the street in fifteen minutes.”

  Carmichael rang off.

  “Something up?” asked the secretary brightly.

  “Yes,” answered Gibbons. “I’m afraid I’ll have to go. Someone else will be along to see Mrs. Redston later.”

  He was already dialing Stutely Manor as he made his way out the door.

  Bethancourt was sitting in the dining room, sipping his second cup of black coffee and reading the paper. Astley-Cooper looked as if he had a bit of a hangover, but had eaten a prodigious portion of bacon and eggs nonetheless, and some color was returning to his face. Bethancourt, who never ate breakfast, was toying with the idea of a slice of toast when the telephone rang. Astley-Cooper went to answer it, returning in a moment to say it was Gibbons.

  “I don’t know what this country is coming to,” said Bethancourt, setting aside the paper. “Anybody would think that policemen should be hard at work by h
alf ten in the morning, not making personal phone calls.”

  Astley-Cooper giggled. “Maybe he has news,” he said hopefully and Bethancourt went out to the phone.

  Gibbons did not reply to his inquiry after his welfare.

  “Joan Bonnar’s disappeared,” he announced.

  “Really?” said Bethancourt, startled. “When?”

  “This morning, presumably,” said Gibbons. “I don’t know anything about it yet, but I thought I’d let you know. Carmichael and I are starting down at once.”

  “All right,” said Bethancourt. “I’ll go over and see you there, if she hasn’t turned up before then.”

  Once he had heard the news, Astley-Cooper insisted on accompanying his guest to the old farmhouse, an idea which Bethancourt embraced as guaranteeing his entrance to the house. After all, there was no very good reason for Martha Potts or the Bensons to welcome his presence, but they could hardly turn away Astley-Cooper.

  Mrs. Potts opened the door to them.

  “Hello, Martha,” said Astley-Cooper. “We heard you were having a spot of trouble and thought we’d pop ’round to see if there was anything we could do. You remember Phillip, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course, come in. Is it all over the village, then? Constable Stikes only just arrived herself.”

  “No,” answered Bethancourt, “I don’t imagine everyone will have heard yet. Sergeant Gibbons rang me—he and the chief inspector are on their way from London.”

  “Well, come on through—though I don’t know as there’s anything to be done. We’re waiting for the police at the moment.”

  “Have you looked for her?” asked Astley-Cooper. “If her car’s here, she can’t have gone far.”

  “We’ve been searching since breakfast,” said Mrs. Potts, leading them down the hall toward the sitting room. “That’s when we missed her. She was drinking last night, so I wasn’t surprised when she wasn’t down to breakfast, but once we’d finished, I thought I’d better see if she wanted coffee in her room. Only the room was empty when I went up.” She spread her hands, pausing in the hall outside the sitting room door. “I wasn’t alarmed at first. I told the twins and they went out to see if she was at her car or had gone to the stables. When we couldn’t find her in any of the obvious places, Julie thought perhaps she’d gone down to Charlie’s cottage. So I rang Peg Eberhart, but she hadn’t seen her and said the cottage was still locked up. That was when we began to worry. We looked all over the house, and then rang Constable Stikes.” She turned and opened the door. “Julie and James are in here.”