Table of Contents
Cover
Recent Titles by Margaret Mayhew From Severn House
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Recent titles by Margaret Mayhew from Severn House
The Village mysteries
OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE
THREE SILENT THINGS
DRY BONES
THE SEVENTH LINK
BITTER POISON
THE LIFELINE
Novels
THE LITTLE SHIP
OUR YANKS
THE PATHFINDER
THOSE IN PERIL
I’LL BE SEEING YOU
ROSEBUDS
A FOREIGN FIELD
QUADRILLE
THE LAST WOLF
THE LIFELINE
Margaret Mayhew
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
This first world edition published 2020
in Great Britain and the USA by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.
Trade paperback edition first published
in Great Britain and the USA 2020 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.
eBook edition first published in 2020 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 2020 by Margaret Mayhew.
The right of Margaret Mayhew to be
identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-9042-9 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-689-0 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0414-1 (e-book)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described
for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are
fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,
Stirlingshire, Scotland.
To Audrey and Jack
ONE
The committee meeting for the annual Frog End village summer fête was always held in early May, leaving plenty of time for a full discussion of any changes to be made and for any new ideas to be thoroughly aired.
The fête had been held at the Manor for as long as anyone could remember, though during the late Lady Swynford’s reign things had not always gone smoothly, due to her many vetoes and quibbles. However, since her unfortunate demise (murder, in fact), her daughter and heir, Ruth, had proved to be as obliging as her mother had been difficult. Last year’s fête had been an unqualified success and there was every reason to expect this one to be as good, or even better.
On the sunny morning of this year’s committee meeting, the Colonel and his neighbour, Naomi Grimshaw, widowed like himself, walked to the Manor from their respective cottages on the village green. May, he decided, was his favourite month of the year. Naomi, often unpredictable in her opinions, told him that hers was October.
‘It’s the light, Hugh. Like somebody’s changed the bulb to gold. Makes everything look gorgeous.’
That was true enough. But nothing, he thought, could match the arrival of spring after the long, dark months, and May was the high point of that miraculous awakening and the transformation from drab winter to glorious summer. In army postings abroad, he and his wife, Laura, had missed out on English springs and Laura had always dreamed of them retiring to the countryside one day. They had been home on a summer leave, touring Dorset, when they had come across a rose-covered cottage, looking idyllic from across a village green. Years later, after Laura had died, he had found the village, Frog End, and the cottage again, but not looking anything like as idyllic on a cold, wet, winter day. Close-up, the house was dilapidated and forlorn – paint peeling, timbers rotting, thatched roof disintegrating, the rambling rose run wild.
There had been a For Sale sign leaning at a drunken angle by the front gate and he had visited the local agent. The cottage was called Pond Cottage, though there was no sign of a pond, and the price the highest its owner, a local farmer, had had the nerve to ask. Against all sense and reason and in defiance of an appalling survey, he had bought it. The wiring had been a dangerous disgrace, the kitchen range a museum piece, wood and coal were kept in the scullery claw-foot bath, and the lavatory, skulking in an outhouse, was surrounded by a stingingly hostile barrier of nettles.
Builders and painters and thatchers had set to work and Naomi from Pear Tree Cottage next door had given expert advice on tackling the jungle of nettles and brambles at the back, eventually aided by a strong-armed, young gardener, Jacob, seconded temporarily from his work in the Frog End Manor gardens. They had even discovered the lost pond, choked with weeds and covered in green slime that the Colonel had managed to clear out himself. He knew that he could never hope to emulate Naomi’s demi-paradise next door – she was a natural-born gardener – but he was making some progress, along with plenty of mistakes.
It had been a wonder to watch the rare and beautiful Three Ships snowdrops that Naomi had given him making an early Christmas appearance under the old lilac tree. They had been followed by the humbler catalogue snowdrops that he had picked more for their nice names than for anything else: Merlin, Wendy’s Gold, Magnet, Ophelia, Augustus. Then came the aconites and crocuses and the drifts of daffodils and narcissi that he had also laboriously planted, one by one, and, later still, the bluebells. To his mind they were the most English of all wild spring flowers. Primroses were strong contenders, but the bluebell was the winner. He thought that Laura would have agreed.
Pond Cottage had been his home for three years now and he seemed to have been accepted by the village. As Naomi had once put it – when she had wanted him to do something useful – he was now a respected member of the community, as well as an old soldier, both of which incurred obligations.
He had volunteered his services for various worthy causes – graveyard grass cutting, door-to-door charity collections, driving his old Riley car to and fro on hospital runs, supporting jumble sales and anything that would raise money to keep the village church still standing, with its roof intact. The new young vicar had recruited him as a sidesman and as a lesson reader which he had agreed to, though reluctantly.
Under considerable pressure, he had given a talk in the village hall about his career in the army. It had se
emed a poor comparison with other residents’ contributions, which were invariably accompanied by impressive slides, but the audience had been appreciative and there had been many questions afterwards.
Major Cuthbertson, a fellow army retiree who lived at Shangri-La, a sensible new-built bungalow, together with his redoubtable wife, had lost no time in passing on the job of treasurer of the fête committee.
‘Nothing to it,’ the Major had assured him. ‘Done it for years. Piece of cake.’
He had soon discovered that it was nothing of the kind. The committee meetings were very long and very tedious, and the day of the fête was spent counting up hundreds of pounds in very small coins. He had also discovered that the Major, a regular at the Dog and Duck pub and whose wife happened to be chairman of the fête committee, was now very happily in charge of the Bottle Stall.
Naomi, striding along beside him in a magenta tracksuit and wearing the huge white trainers that he privately called her moon boots, was giving him some useful gardening tips.
‘You can get rid of the old daffodil and tulip leaves now, Hugh. They’ve had long enough hanging around. Chop ’em down and throw them on the compost heap. The bulbs’ll keep in good shape for next spring.’
‘Anything else I should be doing?’
‘Where’s that mint I gave you?’
‘Growing in its pot near the pond.’
‘Too far away. You’ll never use it. And how about getting some other herbs going as well?’
‘Such as?’
‘Parsley, sage, thyme, rosemary, chives – the basic cooking ones. But plant them right by the back door so they’re close at hand. No good having them down the garden or you won’t bother with them.’
He rather doubted that he would anyway. Naomi had made noble efforts to widen his cooking range, writing out simple recipes in her near-illegible scrawl. She was a wonderful gardener, but an erratic speller and he had had some difficulty following her ‘Sheperd’s Pie’ and her ‘Tode in the Whole’.
‘I don’t have room. That bed’s full of Ruth’s hellebores.’
Ruth had given him the plants last year, dug from the Manor garden, and he had planted them where he could see them easily from the kitchen window. They flowered from Christmas till Easter and beyond. A cheer-up on the gloomiest days.
‘You could always move them.’
‘They’re non-negotiable, Naomi.’
‘You sound like Prince Charles being stubborn about Camilla.’
‘I’m not budging on the hellebores.’
‘All right. Then get a nice old sink from that junkyard where you found the flagstones for the sundowner and use it for your herbs.’
The sundowner terrace at the back of the cottage had been Naomi’s brainwave. He had sometimes suspected that the whole idea had been inspired by the prospect of pleasant summer evenings drinking outside, as opposed to inside by his sitting-room log fire.
The six o’clock ritual had started on the very day that he had moved in to Pond Cottage. Naomi had called, or, more accurately walked straight in, and he had invited her to join him in a glass of whisky, which she had accepted with alacrity. Her usual brand, she had informed him, was the current cheapest supermarket offer and, for her, Chivas Regal was a real treat. The ritual had continued ever since. A hefty shot in each glass – neat for him and with a splash of ordinary tap water for her. No ice in either which he thought killed the taste and she considered a waste of space. On that same day, another visitor had entered the cottage uninvited. A mangy, battle-scarred, torn-eared, black and tan cat had turned up and, after inspecting the sitting room and sniffing carefully at the packing boxes, had jumped up on to the sofa, clawed at the cushioning and settled down. The Colonel had clapped his hands threateningly but in vain. The cat had ignored him.
Later, he had discovered that the animal was a stray that had moved into the cottage with the previous tenant, Ben. When the old man had died, the cat had vanished. According to Naomi, Ben had named him Thursday because that was the day when he had first appeared. Since he had also returned on a Thursday to favour Pond Cottage with his presence once more, the Colonel had seen no reason to change it.
Naomi had nagged him about the sundowner terrace until he had, finally, given way. A local reclamation yard had provided beautiful and very expensive old flagstones and Jacob, borrowed once again from the Manor, had laid them. The Colonel had to admit that it had been a great success. The flagstones looked as though they had been there for centuries and it was very pleasant to sit out on a summer evening, watching the sun go down behind the trees, glass in hand and chatting. Naomi would dispense invaluable garden wisdom, and cooking tips – to the benefit of both his garden and his previously non-existent cooking skills – and, in between, she would regale him with village gossip, often fascinating but seldom malicious. Though it was true to say that there had been two murders in the village since the Colonel had moved into Frog End three years ago, as well as one questionably accidental death, the village appeared to be a quiet and orderly place. Beneath its placid surface, however, lay a swirling maelstrom of intrigue and misbehaviour, monitored closely by an undercover network that rivalled the Russian KGB. Naomi had a finger on its pulse.
‘Freda Butler dead ahead,’ she said, in the manner of a lookout reporting from a ship’s crow’s nest.
They caught up with the small figure, trotting along in her navy-blue skirt and cardigan, navy-blue hat on her head and navy-blue handbag over one arm. Miss Butler had served in the WRNS until her retirement and she never wore any other colour. Her late father had been an Admiral and she occasionally referred to him in conversation – but not very often. The Colonel had noticed his studio portrait in full dress uniform placed on the top of a bureau in Miss Butler’s pin-neat Lupin Cottage, and it was an intimidating sight. She had once confided to him that she had been a sad disappointment to the Admiral, firstly by not being a son, and secondly, because she had not risen to a higher rank in the service. For some reason, people often confided in the Colonel. He had no idea why.
The irony was that quiet, self-effacing, little Miss Butler was one of the founder members of Frog End’s crack surveillance team – thanks to her pole position at Lupin Cottage on the edge of the village green and also to a powerful pair of German U-boat commander Zeiss binoculars, rumoured to be stamped with the Nazi swastika. It was generally believed that she had discovered them at the back of the drawer of the old bureau – her sole inheritance from her father – though since the Admiral had only been known to sail a desk during the war, it was a mystery how he had acquired such a prized trophy. Miss Butler, herself, had never spoken of them and kept them hidden out of sight in the bureau drawer, but their existence and deployment at Lupin Cottage’s sitting-room front window was common knowledge. Through them, Frog End’s peaceful village green was kept under as close scrutiny as the storm-tossed ocean waters had been during the Battle of the Atlantic.
When they drew alongside, the Colonel raised his cap. ‘Do you mind if we walk with you, Miss Butler? We all seem to be heading the same way.’
She went a little pink in the face. ‘Not at all, Colonel.’
In addition to her navy-blue handbag, she was carrying a spiral-bound reporter’s notebook. Among her many village voluntary activities, Freda Butler was secretary of the summer fête committee and in charge of taking the minutes – a task as thankless as his own as treasurer. She had to record everything that was said during the meeting – the impractical proposals, the endless arguments, the hard-fought decisions – and all in a coherent form that could be read back at the start of the following meeting without giving offence or cause for more argument.
They slowed their pace to Miss Butler’s smaller steps, escorting her on each side. Since the Colonel was well over six foot tall, and Naomi Grimshaw shorter though wider, they dwarfed her. She smiled up at them both in turn.
‘What lovely weather we’re having! Let’s hope we’re as lucky for the fête.’
Being England, the odds were against it, as they all knew very well. Wet weather contingency plans would have to be made at the committee meeting, involving teas being served in the old stables and some of the more vulnerable stalls, such as cakes and books and bric-a-brac being moved into the house. The late and un-mourned Lady Swynford, Ruth’s mother, had refused to allow anything inside beyond the hallway, with all other doors kept firmly locked, but her daughter was another matter.
The Manor had become very different since Ruth had taken over – reverting to the village-friendly place it had been when her father, Sir Alan, had been alive. Ruth had rescued the neglected gardens, abandoning her job in London to work in them herself and thereby discovering an entirely new and unexpected interest. The Manor’s old gardener had long since retired and others, much less satisfactory, come and gone, when Jacob had turned up at the Manor some time ago, asking for work. A gangly young man, dressed in shapeless clothes and a floppy hat. Origins unknown, reliability uncertain, inarticulate, clumsy and, it had to be said, more than a bit odd. Ruth had taken a chance when she had hired him but he had proved his worth.
Jacob was not the only good decision that Ruth had made. After a long and unhappy involvement with a married man in her London days, she had finally agreed to marry Tom Harvey, the Frog End village doctor, and the Colonel had been surprised and delighted to be asked to give her away at the church wedding. At the end of April, Alan – named after his late grandfather – had been born.
Miss Butler trotted a little faster. ‘I wonder if we shall catch a glimpse of the baby today.’
Naomi grunted. ‘Hope not. Children should neither be heard nor seen, in my opinion.’
Naomi described herself as widowed though, to be strictly accurate, she had been divorced from her husband for some years before he had died. In her view, widows had a far better image than divorcees and she chose to ignore the timing. A stingy bastard or a mean old skinflint was the way she usually described her former husband. Their one and only son had emigrated to Australia and married a dyed-in-the-wool sheila who, apparently, hated the English weather. Visits to Pear Tree Cottage were rare and Naomi’s two grandchildren were usually referred to as those little Aussie buggers.
The Lifeline Page 1