‘I suppose I do.’
‘And I don’t suppose you’re about to tell me whose bike it is you can get samples from.’
‘Not yet. OK, maybe never. But make sure your car insurance is up to date, won’t you? Just in case they have another go at you.’
Nosey practically wrung his paws with grief and anxiety at the sight of the little boy’s bear hanging on the rotary washing line with Wystan’s laundry. What was to be done with it? Should I accept that it had now been replaced by that revolting stegosaurus or whatever it was? If so, I could take it up to church to find sanctuary in a refugee child’s arms. Or should I go with my instinct, that it was still precious in his eyes? We agonised together over an early lunch and a glance at The Guardian. In the end I decided to text James Ford, who worked for the letting agency running Brian Dawes’ properties. He was a relatively new father, and inclined to panic until he heard about the mother’s cavalier attitude. Then – and he was such a mild man he surprised me – he raged, heaping imprecations on her unfeeling head. He would phone her at once.
Meanwhile I had to address myself to work, the Preston pictures in particular. I had a meeting with Hazel Roberts, the Wray Episcopi chair of governors, and Colin Ames, the secretary. It took place very pleasantly in Hazel’s old-fashioned garden as we sat in wicker chairs round a table laden with China tea and home-made cake, but it was serious enough in tone to suit a coroner.
‘I’m very much afraid that Lady Preston is threatening legal action,’ Hazel said, adjusting the angle of the sun umbrella. ‘I’ve known the family for nearly seventy years, Jane, and Cassandra in particular. She once laid a girl’s shin open to the bone with her hockey stick and showed no remorse, even solicitude, whatever. Now she may be less physical but she’ll be tenacious. There’ll be media coverage – her niece works for TVInvicta – and probably letters from her solicitor.’
‘And probably more personal visits, too’ Colin added, accepting another slice of cake with a gracious nod.
‘Not without invitation, surely – or at least permission,’ I objected. ‘Random strangers can’t just turn up and demand entry.’
Colin’s gentle, kindly face expressed extreme distaste. ‘Young Matt Storm happens to be my great-nephew and though he’s not local he has at least blood loyalties, however much diluted. He tells me Lady P claims that her family, having kindly donated and endowed the building, still owns it. There will be, somewhere deep in the council’s archives, appropriate documents proving council ownership – or possibly, one fears, disproving it. There might even be a record of what happened to her ancestor’s paintings, but I for one would doubt it.’
I was about to offer a commiserating but slightly smug smile: this wasn’t my problem, but the governors’. The old hands who’d held legally responsible posts for years, not an absolute newcomer who’d not even sat in her new office chair. But the looks coming my way told me without words that there was something I didn’t know about. And it wasn’t going to be good.
‘She claims she has seen in her muniments room a letter declaring that the school and all its contents are the responsibility of the head teacher. As soon as we have sight of the paper in question, we can take legal advice of our own,’ Colin said.
‘I wouldn’t if I were you! Because if I’m proved to be responsible, then you as trustees are in the clear.’
‘My dear Jane, that is not the sort of advice we want from our solicitors.’ Hazel placed her thickly veined hand over mine. The diamonds on her rings could have done with a thorough clean, but their very size was impressive. ‘The woman is a bully. The only way to deal with bullies is for everyone to stand against them.’
To my amazement, I turned my hand over to squeeze hers lightly. ‘Thank you. At least the council have to provide us with legal advice – that doesn’t have to come out of the school budget.’
‘I don’t believe the paint and furniture for your office came out the school budget, did it? You’re a naughty girl, Jane. More tea? I think we deserve a fresh pot. Green gets stewed so quickly …’
The setting was so idyllic I almost expected a butler to materialise, but she got up herself, not without a little difficulty, though she did not use the stick beside her chair.
‘I understand that you have been doing most wonderful things with your little cricketers,’ Colin said. ‘But I don’t see you being able to do the same with the Episcopi children, not with the size of their poor playground.’
‘If we could get the PTAs of both schools to raise funds for a minibus, there’d be so much we could do. But – forgive me for asking and for changing the subject so violently– are you related to the great Les Ames?’
‘I wish I were! And I’m afraid I wasn’t named after Colin Cowdrey either. But I do love my cricket. I had the honour of having my windscreen smashed by Kevin Pietersen once, you know, when I was parked on the boundary at the St Lawrence Ground and he hit the most glorious six …’
Hazel returned, pouring fresh tea, and offering more cake, which it was an effort to decline. ‘Have you managed to run Maggie Hale to earth yet, Jane? I don’t remember the pictures being there in her tenure, but you never know – she might have an idea. No? Well, the woman’s entitled to enjoy her retirement without checking her emails every day.’
My route home was very circuitous, via Ashford, in fact, so it was after five when I pulled up outside the cottage. Who should be waiting but James Ford, the letting agent. The heat was by now so intense I showed him into the garden, where he could scarcely miss the washing on the whirligig.
He unpegged the bear and looked at him quizzically. ‘Mrs Adams says you’re surplus to requirements, my lad. But having had an interesting night when my William lost his cuddly cat, I doubt it.’
‘Quite. Will you look after him or shall I?’ I asked, unpegging the clothes and stowing them in clean sacks.
‘You’re not going to take him along to the church? Mind you, I’d have thought bears would be in huge demand right now. Those poor kids …’
‘I’m with you on Wystan’s wanting him. I reckon you’ll get a call at midnight demanding you take him up to London – probably in the front seat wearing a seat belt, of course. Meanwhile the refugee kids won’t go lonely. If you don’t mind helping me with this sack, I’ll show you what’s in my car.’
James placed the bear carefully on the hammock.
‘No, you take him! I’m not going on the Pony Express run.’
‘I’m afraid William will kidnap him if I do.’
‘Not if you lock him in your boot.’
‘That’d be cruelty to dumb animals.’
‘No worse than leaving him out here on his own.’
Laughing, we walked to my car, the bear on James’s shoulder like a baby wanting to be burped. James stared. Round eyes stared back. ‘Just how many teddies are there in there?’
‘Eight. I cleared out the Oxfam shop. The volunteer assured me they’d all been washed.’
‘You know what,’ he said, as he stowed the bag of clothes in the footwell, ‘I’ll see what I can organise at work. It’s one thing being sorry for people living so far away you can’t make a difference, but another when they’re here on your doorstep and quite desperate.’
We drove off in different directions. I was still smiling when I reached the church. Carol, the churchwarden, was obviously just leaving, but turned back to unlock it for me, and solemnly arranged the bears on a pew. I suspected that their fixed gaze might disconcert the preacher.
‘We’re going to have a brief service of blessing before we take all the donations off,’ she said. ‘Eight-thirty. You will come, won’t you, to wave your friends goodbye?’
For the first time, I felt at home and wanted in the village, and tootled home without a care in the world.
Until I saw the blue Ford Ranger with tinted windows parked in front of my house. Just the sort of vehicle Doreen and Harry said had aimed at me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Fight or flight? There was enough adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine sloshing round my system to float a battleship, assuming the UK still had one to float. I was about to slam into reverse and head for the safety of the pub – anywhere. But years of therapy made me breathe deeply and relax. That was better. The red mist was clearing. There were plenty of great ugly SUVs on the road: this one didn’t have to be my assailant – he might be just an ordinary guy with too much money and not enough taste.
He might even be Ed van Boolen, who’d recently decided he needed just such a monster for his business – possibly.
It was Ed.
I slotted the car into its stable, getting out and greeting him with a smile as I zapped it locked.
Considering the loveliness of the evening, he looked decidedly grim. He greeted me with a mere flap of the hand.
‘Problems?’ I asked brightly.
‘Yeah. Work stuff.’ Very occasionally you could pick up his Netherlands origins – there was the tiniest hint of a sh sound instead of a pure s. ‘Thing is, I may be away for the Oval match. Not sure yet. But you might want to think of having someone on standby, so to speak.’ The sh was very much in evidence.
‘Of course. But it’ll be sad if you can’t go: it promises to be a good match.’ I didn’t want to invite him in. Not till I’d thought a bit more about the coincidence. Though of course it could have been a black SUV with tinted windows, or just a plain ute. The trouble was, there were no Doreen and Harry to ask. And there are lots of other makes besides Fords – Mitsubishi, Nissan, Honda … Why pick on this?
I wanted to walk slowly round inspecting every inch of the vehicle, but I confined myself to asking, ‘Is this new? I don’t recall seeing it before.’
‘It’s a mate’s,’ he said dismissively. ‘While my van’s off the road.’ Suddenly he produced his familiar grin. ‘Poncy great thing, isn’t it? I’d rather be White Van Man with a rickety trailer any day of the week.’ He looked round, as if checking no one could overhear. ‘Just to warn you, Jane, there might be a bit of trouble brewing at Wray Episcopi. The PTA noticeboard. I hear you took it down.’
‘So I did. I didn’t think being able to read the F and the C words on an official noticeboard was going to improve the children’s education one iota,’ I said, more crisply than I intended. I tried to soften it with a grin. ‘I know the kids have to start with short words, but not those. And not in school.’
He returned my smile. ‘Quite. I agree with you. I’d hate to have my nephew and niece seeing anything like that, anywhere, for that matter.’
‘So you’re an uncle? I didn’t know that. How old are they? And no, I’m not touting for business, though it would be nice to have ready-made cricketers in one of the schools.’
‘I’m not good on ages. And I don’t see them very often. Sort of fallen out with my sister, cos I don’t get on with her husband. Anyway, it seems that someone is spoiling for a fight.’
‘Not the PTA people?’
‘I just thought – you know, a word to the wise …’
‘Fancy a cold drink?’ I asked, surprising myself.
He did. We sat in the garden sipping lager.
‘This here noticeboard,’ I began. ‘It’s all nonsense. I wrote to the PTA three times asking them to get rid of the graffiti. No response. I tried cleaning it up myself, even tried painting it over, but the words were so deeply incised that made it worse. I asked them to remove it. No response. What else could I do but take it down? It’s still locked in my office, complete with Rawlplugs and screws, awaiting their response.’ I was about to pour out my troubles with Lady Preston and her missing pictures, but decided, as ever in this village, that discretion was the best way of dealing with possibly feudal sensibilities. I allowed myself a low groan, my head in my hands. ‘What is it with people? Speaking of which, how’s St Luke’s Bay’s stroppy batsman?’
He shook his head. ‘That crazy idiot Dennis Paine? It’s weird. He’s as sweet as a lamb half the time, and then – whoosh! He just loses it. And – this is why I’m worried about the PTA business, Jane – the PTA chair is none other than Dennis’s brother.’
‘Of course! Why didn’t I work it out?’
‘Worse than Dennis for temper. He’s a member of English First.’
‘I take it we’re not talking about people who care about the purity of our language?’ I asked ironically.
‘Gerry Paine? Purity of language?’
‘Actually, he probably uses a lot of Anglo-Saxon words.’ It took him a moment to pick up my allusion. We shared a laugh.
‘It’s a nasty little right-wing group. Full of nasty little Englanders. The sort that want me to go home.’
‘Like England First? But that’s died out, hasn’t it?’
‘It might have died nationally, but they’re giving it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation down here, even if it’s under a slightly different name. Not just anti-immigration but anti pretty well anything. Women. Especially good-looking women with power. Sorry. But you need to know.’ He drained his glass and looked at his watch. ‘I’d best be off – thanks for this.’
‘More to the point, Ed, thanks for the warning.’
‘Take it. Please. If his brother wants to beat up an umpire, think how much more fun Gerry could have smashing a head teacher’s face. See you at the match?’
‘Of course. I just hope I’m watching, not wagging my index finger in the air and annoying stroppy batsmen!’
I annoyed someone else before that, of course. Not the people who welcomed me at the little service they held to send prayers with the toys and clothes, which we loaded into three or four big hatchbacks – none of which, to my relief, were threatening SUVs. Not even either of the Paine brothers. It was Maggie Hale, my predecessor at Wray Episcopi.
As soon as the short service was over, I headed over to the playground there. By ten I was emptying flower tubs into the sacks I’d brought along. Once the tubs would have been a credit to the school, but all had died long before I’d arrived on the scene. Half of me wanted the children who’d originally planted them to deal with them to learn about the complete cycle of the growing year. The other half wanted a nice tidy clean environment, with the tubs and planters ready for the children to fill with spring bulbs. The tidy half won. How could anyone object to that?
But something had certainly enraged Maggie, who erupted from her Mazda MX-5 – at least inasmuch as it’s possible to erupt from a sports car, even one with its top down.
She confronted me from the far side of the school wall, arms akimbo. ‘What I’d like to know is what on earth you think you’ve been doing.’
‘Good morning, Maggie – how nice to see you too. Did you have a good break?’
Unkindly I moved slightly so that to look me in the eye she had to squint and shield her face from the gorgeous sun.
‘Break? With that constant stream of emails you bombarded me with? Some break! Let’s get something straight, Jane. I have retired. I am no longer working here. The school is no longer anything to do with me. I do not wish to have any further communications from you about the trivia you seem to think will interest me – especially when I am away, not just on holiday but also on an important course. In fact, I do not wish to have anything to do with you or with the school. Is that clear?’
‘Absolutely. I quite understand, and I’m sorry I importuned you. Especially when you were on your creative writing course. How did it go?’ It was a genuine enquiry: after all, we’d been on the best of terms when the negotiations had been in train.
‘That is not what I came to talk about.’
In other words, she’d not quite got in touch with her inner Jane Austen.
‘Of course. And I assure you that I’d have respected your privacy if I’d had the option. But it seems Lady Preston is considering legal advice to get her family pictures back, and though I’ve searched high and low I simply can’t find them.’
‘Not my problem, Jane. Yours. Or the governors’.’
Disarmed – who’d have thought either of us would be petrolheads? – she started extolling the pretty little car’s virtues. ‘I had to wait till I retired, of course: you can’t get full-size nativity scenes in this!’ Suddenly she was the woman I’d really liked. Her tan suited her; her hair was sun-bleached – she looked ten years younger, too, especially when she smiled.
This week’s beauty tip: give up teaching.
We were looking into the boot, for some reason, when she said, out of the corner of her mouth, ‘There were never any pictures in my time. But you mustn’t quote me on that. Can I have your word?’
‘What about your predecessor?’
‘Mrs Derricott. Nearly gaga. In an old people’s home in Folkestone. Somewhere on the front. Trouble is, I don’t know the name of the place and with data protection you’re not going to be able to turn up out of the blue and ask. But if you keep my name out of this I’ll make some enquiries for you.’
‘Not for me, Maggie. I could go to the Old Bailey to swear on oath I’ve never seen the things. If Lady P or the governors are that desperate then they can do the enquiring. But thanks all the same.’ I hesitated awkwardly. ‘I don’t know how you feel about coming back here as a visitor – but you know you’re welcome.’
‘I’ll steer clear for a bit. It’s your baby now and you need to look after it your way: I had old Mrs Derricott peering over my shoulder and criticising for years, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.’ She pressed her car zapper. ‘So thanks, but no thanks. And this conversation—’
‘Never happened,’ I finished for her. ‘Take care,’ I added, conventionally.
‘It’s you who must take care, Jane. But I didn’t say that either.’ She eased herself into the driver’s seat and drove swiftly away.
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