Death in Elysium

by Judith Cutler

  ‘You don’t think a six-year-old Focus is going to offend anyone?’

  ‘What do you think? Make ’em shed a tear, more like.’ It seemed the conversation was over. But he suddenly asked, ‘What’s it like, having lots of money? And why did you come down to this dump instead of spending it?’

  ‘The second question’s easier to answer,’ I said honestly. ‘I came down here because I love Theo, and since his job’s here, he’s not going anywhere.’

  ‘But a lot of folk hate your guts, see, you being a banker.’ That hurt. But at least I had the consolation that it wasn’t personal. ‘Might have been better if he’d got a job near you.’

  ‘The church doesn’t quite work like that. And if I say having money’s nothing compared to loving the right person, I dare say you’d laugh in my face. Just for the record, I wasn’t a banker. Ever. And I never had huge bonuses or any other stuff.’

  ‘What was you then?’ He looked taken aback, as if denied his right to be resentful.

  ‘I worked in computing.’ No need to specify the firms I spent most years with, since their tax arrangements appalled even me. ‘Recently I did short-term contract work.’

  ‘Used to like computers. At school. Then at the library. Then they shut the library.’

  ‘And they shut the youth club, too.’

  ‘Yeah, but the computers there were crap. And it was just for kids, really. The club, I mean.’

  I was beginning to have the glimmer of another idea, but wasn’t about to talk it over with him. Not just yet. Rather than come out with a platitude, however, I looked at his feet. ‘Pretty sound shoes: are you up to running with me for a few hundred metres? Only I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Malcolm Burns. Mazza. OK. You’re on.’

  After some warm-up exercises he clearly thought were beneath his dignity but certainly weren’t beneath mine, I took him on a gentle circuit round the estate, so he wouldn’t feel bad about dropping out on the excuse he’d got to pop into a mate’s house or something. But he kept going: he had the right build for a distance runner, whippy, and he ran in a neat economical style. So we circled the better-heeled parts too. Wouldn’t you know it, halfway round the village green we overtook not the dreaded Mountford, who might have expired with a seizure at our feet, but Ted Vesey and his wretched amorous dog. Only it didn’t seem too loving when the feet and ankles it saw were moving. Guessing what the dratted thing would do, I shoved Mazza hard enough to make him stumble away; I’d had enough practice of dealing with snappy dogs to jump clear. But I’d reckoned without the extended lead Vesey favoured, which acted like a tripwire.

  Vesey’s apology, when I fetched up on my hands and knees at his feet, was courtly enough, and I accepted it graciously, despite his acrid glances at my running partner. Fortunately I’d escaped with no more than bruises. In the summer, with shorts and no gloves, it might have been a different matter.

  Dusting myself down, I trotted after Mazza, who to my horror was busily filming everything with a mobile even more expensive than mine. So what was all that about not being able to use a computer? ‘Please promise me that won’t go on YouTube or whatever,’ I said. ‘Just delete it.’

  ‘Bastard tightened the lead deliberately,’ he said. ‘I’ll make him smile the other side of his face. Could have hurt you bad. Sue him: he’s fucking loaded.’

  ‘Let’s not start a class war over my knees,’ I said. ‘Keep it to yourself, please. Or I shan’t train with you tomorrow. Mind you,’ I continued, as I set us going again, ‘I bet you’ll be too stiff.’

  ‘Bloody won’t. What time?’

  ‘Half-seven? At the rectory? We’ll do some warm-ups and add an extra kilometre.’

  He winced. At the time, I thought, rather than the distance I’d suggested.

  ‘Or would half-one be better?’ I asked with a grin. ‘But let’s see you getting rid of that footage first.’

  ‘No way. That sort of bugger’s likely to accuse one of us – OK, me – of kicking the little rat. But I won’t put it on YouTube.’

  ‘Nor on your Facebook page. Or anywhere else. Now for our warm-downs …’ I started mine. As I stretched, I asked casually, ‘Have you seen Burble? He popped off first thing this morning after bringing us a brace of road-kill pheasants and I’ve not seen him since.’

  ‘Probably foraging,’ he said tersely. ‘Though he knows some weird—’ His phone bellowed some music I didn’t know. ‘Got to take this.’

  ‘I gather you’re spending your time making young criminals fitter,’ Theo said as we washed up before heading to bed that night. Oh, for a dishwasher. Oh, for enough space for a dishwasher.

  ‘Ah. Ted Vesey’s been in touch.’ I put down a wine glass very carefully on the draining board.

  He picked it up with equal delicacy. ‘No. Not Ted. Someone else. You know every wall in a village has eyes as well as ears. Was it wise to kick Ted’s dog, Jodie?’

  ‘I’d have kicked Vesey’s balls if I could have reached. Actually, the running shoe, as it were, is on the other foot. I tripped over the dog’s lead, that Mazza swears—’

  ‘As much as Burble?’

  ‘Almost – Mazza swears that Vesey tightened the lead deliberately. He got footage to prove his point too, and to prove that my feet were flailing in the air, not kicking anyone or anything. I made him promise not to distribute it, though.’

  ‘Thank you. Rector’s Wife Assaulted By Churchwarden – that would have looked good on the Internet, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Quite. Though how Mazza comes to have such an upmarket phone, I’d rather not know. I doubt if he’ll come tomorrow or I’d get him to show it to you. The clip, not the phone.’

  ‘Sweetheart, you don’t need to do that. I believe you. Without any evidence.’ Laying aside the tea-towel he kissed me thoroughly enough to convince me.

  I returned the compliment, but not totally satisfactorily given the blue rubber gloves. ‘It’d be nice for you to be able to show other people though. Or rather, tell – I’d be happier him not knowing my personal number, which isn’t the most Christian thing to say, I know.’

  ‘You’re not the priest in charge, sweetheart; you don’t have to put your details into the public domain. But I’m interested that you don’t entirely trust this Mazza.’ He put away the glass and looked at me quizzically.

  ‘I don’t distrust him. After all, he’s not uploaded it yet: I checked ten minutes ago. It’s more – a matter of distance between him and me. I’m not sure if I’m making sense. It’s one thing to get him running, to give him something to do, but another to have him thinking he’s my friend. Though I think he might have tried to give me a veiled warning about the folk Burble hangs out with. I’m not sure … But he did give me one idea,’ I added positively.

  ‘You seem to be having a lot these days!’ Turning from me he hung up the tea-towel.

  I flushed. I detected a distinct note of – was it simply amusement or was there criticism there too? No, just amusement. ‘I just thought that since I know quite a lot about computers, maybe I should give the unemployed kids some lessons. In the village hall or somewhere. A sort of ASBO club,’ I added with a rueful grin. ‘It’d make them more employable, if ever there are any jobs in the future.’

  He took my hands and kissed me. ‘That’s a brilliant idea. But what about the computers they’d need?’

  ‘Ah. I suppose I couldn’t just buy … No? OK, I wonder if the village school would let us use theirs …’

  ‘I know what Mrs Mountford would say: No doubt the ne’er-do-wells would download material you wouldn’t want a child to see.’ He had her face and her voice to a T.

  ‘As if I couldn’t stop that. Filters, Mrs Mountford, ma’am! Still, one thing at a time: let’s not try to run before I can walk.’

  He turned his mouth down, Eeyore now. But he couldn’t keep the joy from his eyes. ‘You may have a lot of walking coming up, too. Jodie, I can’t wait any longer: your shop in the church idea’s going to get
the bishop’s approval. But don’t say anything until everything’s firmed up.’ We danced round the kitchen like kids.

  At last I pulled away. ‘But it’s not down to us, or even the bishop, is it? It’s the PCC that has to make decisions. Speaking of which, I’d love you to circulate my PR friend’s free idea – he wants the bells to be recorded and used on the church and the village websites and Facebook pages.’

  ‘My love, as far as I know, neither has either. But you’re right, before you say anything – both should have both.’

  ‘Mrs Mountford notwithstanding.’

  ‘Quite. So we don’t tread on anyone’s toes or even reinvent the wheel, I’ll phone the chair of the parish council tomorrow and tell her what we’ve been talking about. Julie’s a sensible woman: her husband’s very ill so she’s not been as active as she’d like. I’m sure she’d love a joint website – we have to sneak into the twenty-first century somehow!’ He put his hand in the small of my back to propel me upstairs. ‘I bet you’ve got a friend who can get us there, at least as far as the website’s concerned.’

  ‘I could do it myself, Theo, standing on my head with one hand tied behind my back. But remember what you said about fishing and teaching how to fish.’

  ‘And to whom are you planning to give fishing lessons?’

  I said mildly, ‘It would be good if someone from the village could be volunteered into having them. Mazza, for instance …’

  ‘Mazza!’ But then his parson’s instincts overrode his middle-aged, middle-class ones. ‘Yes, Mazza. Perfect.’

  Or not. I was ready to fight my corner when his face was transformed by the sweet smile that had turned my heart over the night we met.

  ‘I’m so glad you’ve come to St Dunstan’s. He’d be very proud of you. Dunstan,’ he repeated as I shook my head in incomprehension. He took my hands in his and kissed them in turn.

  ‘I thought he was all about white sticks and guide dogs.’

  ‘He gave up his worldly life and retired to Kent. Nothing, they say, gave him more pleasure than teaching the young.’

  FIVE

  Who had taken a jemmy to our garage? Someone, I assumed, that didn’t know that one thing Mazza had enjoyed at school was whatever they called metalwork these days. Though not friends – Mazza, it transpired, was a year or so younger than Burble – they rubbed along enough for Burble to have told him how casual we were about our outbuildings’ security. So Mazza had found a piece of metal and fashioned it into a backing plate for the edges of the garage doors. He’d also sneered at the padlock we’d hoped would guard our shed, sending me off to B&Q to upgrade it to something suitable for protecting the Tower of London. If, of course, we could remember the combination, which he insisted was not written down anywhere obvious or kept on my phone.

  ‘We only keep old spades and flowerpots in there,’ Theo had protested.

  ‘Look, Vic, double glazing this old, locks this weak, all you need to do is shove a spade under a door frame and Bob’s your uncle.’

  ‘Or in these enlightened times, your aunt,’ Theo had murmured, with a wry grin at me.

  But we’d been glad of the boys’ activities when we saw the scars on the garage doors. And – bother having to wait for a faculty – I brought in a locksmith to improve as far as he could the security of the rectory itself. It was actually Theo’s idea. He’d counselled enough victims of crime to know that even if thieves didn’t get away with hundreds of pounds’ worth of loot, just having someone break into your home could leave you feeling violated.

  ‘I assume it won’t break your bank?’ he said.

  ‘I hope not. Though I could always sell a Monopoly money house,’ I said lightly. It would worry him to know that the little terrace house I’d first lived in in Primrose Hill, the very first property in my portfolio, would probably fetch over three million pounds. Its next-door neighbour had. It’s nonsense, the London property market. And getting crazier by the minute.

  ‘A green one or a red one?’

  ‘The red ones are hotels, darling. I’ll never make a capitalist out of you.’

  Without explanation, three scraps of newspaper arrived on the back step. In the first were a dozen repellent-looking fungi, which might equally be mushrooms or toadstools; next came what looked like a cross between bulb leaves and spring onions and smelt strongly of garlic; and in the third were green things I simply didn’t recognize.

  ‘Very Shakespearean,’ Theo said, picking up the green things. ‘King Lear,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘The scene where Edgar pretends he’s on the cliffs of Dover, with samphire gatherers down below.’

  I dimly remembered. ‘But what’s all this to do with us? Apart from nourishing our new worms?’

  ‘I fancy it’s the result of some forager’s activities.’

  ‘Foraging? Mazza said something about Burble foraging; is that just another term for scrumping?’

  ‘Not if by scrumping you mean stealing food from people’s private property. Foragers claim they only take food from public areas – woodland, verges, the seashore. Which could well be true of this – wild garlic: smell! – and the mushrooms, assuming that’s what they are. I might just check on the Internet before you put them in a risotto.’

  I did. They were delicious. We lived to tell the tale.

  Meanwhile, the bramble patch got smaller, Burble having apparently twigged at last that regular hours brought in regular money. He went quite pink with embarrassment when I thanked him for the food, and offered to pay for the vegetables.

  ‘Nah. Free to me, free to you.’

  ‘Your mum must be grateful for what you bring in.’ He’d never talked about his family, so I knew I was taking a risk.

  His face closed completely. He was ready to walk away. In other words, I knew what I could do with my nosiness. I’d save asking about his dad till another day. Meanwhile, I had to make the first move: ‘Look, how about a bit of digging – it’d be a change from brambles.’

  Apart from helping Burble, if indeed that was what I was doing, I made sure Mazza and I ran further each day. He had a real talent that someone should have spotted when he was younger. Soon I’d be able to get him on the hill circuit with the lovely views, not that I expected him to break into raptures and compose a sonnet even if, as the country greened up and even got a powdering of blossom, I was increasingly tempted to do.

  The day he and Burble had to sign on at the Job Centre, both oozing resentment at what they clearly felt was a futile bureaucratic exercise, happened to be so temptingly bright and mild that, with Theo at some diocesan meeting, I allowed myself the luxury of a private run. I would do my complete circuit, even though the comparative lack of action over the last few days showed on my timing. Then I found something to slow me down even more. Yes, the view. But this time I wasn’t about to wax lyrical about the countryside’s delicate colours and the sweet scents and the fact that this time the birds were definitely singing. I was peering at the deep valley where I’d seen heavy plant – as in serious machinery – being used to clear what looked like mature trees. Now the same site was busy with workmen: what were they up to? Surely that nice bit of historic-looking woodland wasn’t about to become a building site? Apart from the fact that none of them sported regulation yellow hard hats, it looked very much like the activity I’d watched from thirty storeys up as builders squeezed another skyscraper on to a spot previously occupied by a perfectly usable but not sufficiently prestigious tower of office space. The higher you meant to go up, the further you had to go down – and bother the priceless Roman site you were destroying. But no one was going to build a Shard in Kent. No, my eyes – or my ignorance of agricultural buildings – were deceiving me. Surely. But the lack of hard hats was a shame – safety issues aside, they’d have looked like bright buttercups in the sunshine, an image I thought Burble would like.

  I pushed myself reasonably hard down the hill and didn’t drop my speed to a jog, as I usually did, as I hit the village. I was t
oo keen to get to my computer to see if I could discover what was going on.

  Zero information.

  Clearly I needed to tap into a local grapevine, or bring my ear nearer the jungle drums.

  So when Elaine, the Lizzie Siddal lookalike from the WI, phoned to ask me over for a cup of tea that evening I accepted with alacrity. Theo was taking a confirmation class in one of his outlying villages, and I still found it hard to relax, either with music or a good book, in a house that didn’t feel as if it would ever welcome me. Perhaps it had heard about the changes I wanted to make and resented them.

  Theo bit his lip when I told him I’d be setting out on my own, and on foot, too, since he needed the car. The only car. I’d just have to change his mind on the matter of one for me; not a key-attracting Porsche, however.

  ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’ he asked. ‘You city types tend to rely on your street lights, don’t you?’

  ‘As if there aren’t lights in Birmingham! Come on, you tell me to be careful every time I go out alone,’ I said, hugging him. ‘I’ve got my trusty torch, the one that’s a cross between a cudgel and a lighthouse, and I’d back myself to outrun most assailants.’

  ‘But in the dark, on uneven pavements?’ He shook his head in resignation. ‘If only that guy on the parish council wasn’t so keen on astronomy and didn’t veto every single proposal for street lighting each time it comes up at their meetings.’

  ‘I suppose there’s a lot to be said for reducing energy consumption and light pollution,’ I said, adding more honestly, ‘in the summer at least. But I shall be all right. I’ll even wear my high-vis waistcoat over my jacket if you want.’

  I might have been half-joking, but clearly, from the intensity of his gaze and the fierce grip on my arms, he wasn’t. He said, in the tones of a man who’d lost one dearly loved wife and didn’t want to lose her substitute, ‘I do want, Jodie. Very much.’