The Village Green Affair (32 page)

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Authors: Rebecca Shaw

BOOK: The Village Green Affair
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‘. . . So I rang Mac’s number - I have his private line, you see - and he was round in a moment and off after them.’ Grandmama’s eyes filled with tears.
 
‘Why, what’s the matter?’
 
‘It’s Muriel. She’s definitely lost her marbles, believe me. She had something on her mind that was lost and she asked if I’d taken it! Me, of all people! Mind you, she didn’t know who I was. So sad, isn’t it?’ She gently wiped her eyes so as not to smudge her discreet mascara, and said, ‘Ralph must be worn out. Well, I’m going now to look round the stalls. I loathed the idea of the market at first for Jimbo’s sake, but now, well, it does seem to have some good things. All due to Titus, of course, he maintains a good standard. And I don’t think it’s made inroads into Jimbo’s takings after all, has it?’
 
‘No. In fact, last Thursday the takings were up.’
 
‘Talking of Titus, what’s the situation . . . you know.’
 
‘Well, Liz is having to move out of the flat today because the owner’s coming back from abroad. I offered her a bed but she doesn’t want to be in Turnham Malpas, too many memories, so she’s going to a guest house till she finds somewhere nice to rent.’
 
‘You see, I can’t believe that Neville would be capable of something . . . well . . . less than pleasant. Always appears to be such a gentleman, though rather cold, if you get my meaning. Do you know what happened?’
 
‘No, Katherine, I don’t. Only Neville and Titus know, beside Liz, that is. Whatever, she’s well shot of him.’
 
‘Well, sometimes I wish I’d done that very thing, divorced Jimbo’s father and got rid of him once and for all, but I adored him so, and Jimbo was too young to be fatherless. I kept hoping he’d come home and stay but he didn’t - well, not until he was dying. So gracious in the face of death, you know. Harriet, if ever I go like Muriel, will you bump me off before I become an embarrassment to myself and everyone? I’d hate my grandchildren to see me completely barmy.’
 
Harriet could see that her mother-in-law needed a sharp word or two. ‘You’re getting very maudlin, Katherine, and it’s got to stop. Finished your ginger beer? Then you’d better buzz off before I find you a job to do.’
 
It was then that they heard the cataclysmic roar of motorbikes approaching Turnham Malpas, dozens of them pouring down the Culworth Road and onto the village green. The noise was unbearable. They emerged from the Culworth Road at full throttle. It was the horrifying sound of their triumphant shouts of laughter as they poured onto the village green, which chilled everyone to the marrow.
 
Chapter 17
 
The crowd of bikers diverged and sped down the alleyways between the stalls, revving and thudding about, caring not one jot who or what they toppled. Pedestrians were entirely at their mercy. The smell of diesel, the rubbery reek of screeching tyres, their triumphant shouts of laughter, the screams of the terrified punters, the furious, futile protest of the stallholders and the crash of the stalls and the canopies made Turnham Malpas appear to have descended into hell. It felt to last for hours - hours of pain and fear, of shock and terror.
 
In fact, the devastation lasted only minutes, but in that time substantial items of food were stolen, and Bryan the butcher broke down in tears when he saw his beautiful joints of meat being kicked and thrown everywhere.
 
Having had their fun, the bikers roared off as quickly as they came, waving stolen produce from the stalls, whirling pieces of the striped canvasses around their heads, swiping plates and dishes from the food stalls, even taking great bites out of Jimbo’s gateaux and throwing them down in the dust as they swirled away. They left behind a scene of total destruction.
 
There was a moment of silent shock as the bikes stormed off, then came the wails of distress from the stallholders, howls of protest from the customers, cries of pain from the wounded - and there were quite a few of those - and general confusion. From the Royal Oak came Mac, who’d been in the gents when the bikes had arrived. He flung his arms up in despair. Then Grandmama was at his side, breathing heavily, and holding a list of motorbike numbers under his nose.
 
‘See, I’ve taken these down,’ she panted. ‘Some but not all of their numbers. So you’ve something to get on with.’ The writing was uncertain but then she had been distraught at the time, not to mention knocked and nudged as the bikes streamed by.
 
Mac thanked her profusely, trying hard to focus on the list and relieved he’d look efficient to that lot in Culworth. So, what had happened to the extra officers he’d been promised? So much for Mr Fitch and his promises. If Sir Ralph had arranged it, they would have been here. A single bobby couldn’t possibly have controlled what they’d experienced. Thing was, he’d an idea they were part of a different motorbike gang from those bikers he’d arrested last time. Why? he asked himself. Why? For fun, that’s what. For them, it was one great big joke. Damn them.
 
Titus Bellamy was speechless. As a man of peace he was appalled at the vicious glee with which the bikers had destroyed his living and that of his stallholders. He stood with his head in his hands, trying to hold back his emotions as best he could. He gasped for breath, as though his lungs had gone into cramp. The initial opposition from the villagers was as nothing compared to this, for now the opposition was life-threatening. One unconsidered step and someone could have been killed by a motorbike, such was their speed and fury. He gasped for breath again, sucking in great draughts of air in effort to control his speaking voice before he rang the police. He pulled his mobile out from his trouser pocket, dialled nine, nine, nine. Got through, but found he couldn’t say, ‘Police, please!’ Felt the enormous pressure of something storm-like building up in his chest. He clutched his shirt-front in an effort to still the raging. Tears welled in his eyes. Still the pain escalated. He rubbed his left arm to bring it to life again, tried breathing deeply and slowly, but still he couldn’t stop this gigantic beating taking control of him.
 
Silently Titus called out, ‘
Liz
!’ He had to see her one last time. Just once! His darling Liz.
 
Then she was there. Her hand on his arm felt like a balm to his raging pain, but it didn’t still the excruciating pain in his chest. Gratefully Titus looked into Liz’s eyes, then he slumped to the ground at her feet.
 
Liz tried to stop him falling but she couldn’t, and went down with him onto the grass.
 
Kneeling beside him, she screamed, ‘Titus! Titus!’
 
Titus could hardly hear her for the roaring in his ears.
 
He struggled to say her name.
 
Strove to kiss her lovely lips, so close to his own.
 
Mumbled nonsense.
 
Then the searing pain overwhelmed him, his heart stopped abruptly and he lay dead at her feet with her arms around him. Liz moaned and howled her despair, she hugged him, stroked him, begged him to stay with her but the desolation in her heart told her it was all in vain. Her beautiful, dearest, sweet Titus was gone forever. Her finger trailed along the line of his lips, she bestowed tiny kisses around his mouth, gently shut his staring eyes still so full of pain it seemed, she kissed his temples, smoothed her thumb along his eyebrows, rubbed his loving gentle hands hoping to bring life back to them. Life! Yes! Of course! She’d
breathe
life into him. Liz pumped his chest and breathed forcefully into his open mouth until she was giddy from the effort, but there was no response.
 
 
Caroline, helping to look after the injured, came upon them both. At a glance she summed up the situation and knew exactly what must have happened. Tenderly, she pushed Liz aside and knelt beside Titus, held her fingers to his neck to search for a pulse, and tried herself to return him to life.
 
After a few minutes she took Liz into her arms.
 
‘My dear, it’s all too late, I’m afraid. There’s no response at all. My dear Liz, I’m so sorry.’
 
In the midst of the chaos the two of them continued to kneel beside Titus, one giving comfort, the other paralysed with shock. It was a grim, silent circle of pain, totally detached from the rest of the hectic pandemonium.
 
Liz lifted her head from Caroline’s shoulder and whispered, ‘How can he have died? We love each other so much.’
 
‘That’s how life can be.’
 
‘What kind of a God can do this to us? What kind?’
 
Because she couldn’t think of a single word of comfort when faced with a question like that, Caroline too began to weep.
 
That was how Peter found the two of them on his way back from a visit to Penny Fawcett. Horrified, he leaped out of his car and joined them on the grass. He questioned Caroline with his eyes, and her answer was to shake her head in helpless despair. He encircled the two of them in his arms and rocked them both, murmuring words of comfort, at the same time shaken to the core by Titus’s sudden death.
 
Caroline took off her cardigan and laid it respectfully over Titus’s face and chest.
 
Liz shouted, ‘No! No! Don’t shut him away, please don’t shut him away.’ Tearing off the cardigan, she bent to kiss his lips again and again, but she was horrified to discover they were unresponsive and just beginning to lose the body warmth of a human being, and finally she realized that he was dead and gone . . . never more would those wonderful, tender hands caress her, those gentle, questing lips of his touch her body. No more would she feel his sweet breath against her skin, nor would she lay her head on his chest and feel the very beat of his dear, kind heart. Great, passionate tears rolled unceasingly down her cheeks. Why hadn’t she died with him? Why didn’t she fall on his chest this very second and put an end to it all? Why couldn’t she have a heart attack right now? With the sun beating down on the pair of them, side by side, out here. Not even Peter’s words of blessing could reach the thick, impenetrable wall of her grief.
 
The ambulance came, called for by no one knew, and took Titus away. How Caroline and Peter managed to get Liz from the place outside the school where he’d died to the Rectory they didn’t know. It was a nightmare journey. Anyone less well built and less fit than Peter wouldn’t have been able to do it because Liz was a dead weight. They were constantly stopped by horrified villagers, who didn’t know that Titus was dead, and they fell back in dismay when they learned the truth.
 
‘Have you any sedatives in the house?’ Peter asked Caroline.
 
‘None.’
 
‘None?’
 
‘None at all.’
 
‘Painkillers?’
 
‘Yes.’
 
They laid Liz on the sitting-room sofa, not able to face getting her up the stairs. Instead of howling with pain she’d become too exhausted to make any effort to express her grief, and lay quite still in her own desolate world. Caroline knelt beside the sofa holding her hand. She tested Liz’s forehead. ‘She’s in shock, and very cold. We need a blanket.’
 
‘I’ll get one.’
 
‘Top shelf. Our wardrobe. The Scotch plaid one.’
 
‘Right.’ Peter raced up the stairs two at a time, glad to be of use and feeling that for once in his ministry he was at a loss for words. What could you find to say to someone who lived for twenty-five years with the wrong man, then found her soul-mate, and, in a single, shattering second, lost him? Not a single, damn word. He put the rug against his cheek and relished its comfort for a moment. God help him . . . and more so, God help Liz.
 
Chapter 18
 
At six o’clock that evening Peter opened the Rectory door for the umpteenth time that day and found Neville Neal standing there. A Neville Neal he hadn’t seen before. His hair was lank with sweat, his cheeks were sunken, his skin was grey, his lips were trembling and his clothes were creased.
 
‘Liz. Is she still here? I asked. No one knew.’
 
‘Yes, she is. Come in.’
 
‘Will she see me?’
 
Peter shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She hasn’t spoken since we brought her here. I’ll go and ask.’ He disappeared into the sitting room.
 
Alex crossed the hall. ‘Hello, Mr Neal. Isn’t it terrible about Mr Bellamy?’
 
Neville studied the question. Ever since he’d heard about Titus’s death he’d wavered between absolute delight and crippling shock. His own life had dropped several gears just as Liz’s had until the whole world had gone into slow motion. ‘Even sadder for Liz, my wife.’
 
‘Yes, of course. Good of you to come.’ He turned to climb the stairs.

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