Twelve Drummers Drumming (11 page)

“Ah.”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“Belinda called me on my mobile this morning when I was at the cash-and-carry. Some copper came round for my morris stick—”

“Oh …” Tom groaned. His worst fears were being confirmed.

“—and Belinda talked with Julia, who said they had taken away all the … whatever you call those taiko drumsticks.”

“
Bachi
, I think.”

“Bachi.”

“And none of the other morris sticks, then?”

“Not so I’ve heard. At least none of the lads has called to say. But my morris stick was the only one in the village hall, right? My fool son took it to see if it would work with the taiko drums. The sticks are very similar.”

“When did Daniel take it?”

“I’m presuming for the Sunday afternoon rehearsal, but I don’t
know. And his mother doesn’t know where he is. Probably somewhere with a football.” Eric frowned, picking up the bar towel and absently wiping at the ring of moisture left by Tom’s glass. “What did the coppers have to say at the Parrys’?”

“They asked to speak to Colm and Celia privately, though I did hear them say they found Sybella’s Vespa parked up the road a fair way. But their presence, their body language, their stony faces were enough. I said I’d stay on, if there was anything I could do—and I think Colm would have welcomed it—but Celia had me out the door and on my bike before you could say spongy crumbs.”

“Charming.”

“Well, I didn’t want to intrude further on their grief. And I’m sure Celia feels being a psychologist gives her an edge over a priest in therapeutic matters.”

Eric threw the towel over this shoulder and leaned closer to Tom. “Well, that’s it then. Belinda and I have been here fifteen years, and this is the first …” He glanced up and down the bar as if the right expression were seated at one end or the other. “… instance of—I don’t know what to call it?—‘foul play’? Somehow I never expected there to ever be one. Coming from Birmingham, as we did, we thought it would be—what’s the word …?”

“Idyllic?”

“Yes, that one. And it has been. Until now. Well, except for a spot of graffiti now and again and Fred over there nicking things when he’s on the job, but that’s normal. Yes, luv,” he said to a beaky-looking woman who popped up down the counter, leaving Tom speculating on paradise lost.

“You stayed in the hall yesterday when the coppers came, didn’t you?” Eric asked on his return.

Tom shuddered. “I watched Sybella being pulled from the drum. There didn’t seem to be any blood or the like. I suppose the forensic examination might find something.”

Eric shook his head in thought. “I hardly knew the girl, really. She could be a bit sarky down at the Waterside, those rare moments
when I can get Belinda away for a quiet meal … actually, I’m surprised Liam kept her on so long. Or that she stayed. Most of his waitstaff leaves in tears before a week is out.

“Anyway, she didn’t come in here much. And when she did, she was usually alone and had a sketchpad with her. Didn’t seem to pay any mind to anyone, I don’t think.” He looked faintly puzzled. “Although …”

“What?”

Eric paused, frowned, and then said, “Sorry, I’d thought of something, but it vanished.” He shrugged, then directed one of his servers with plates of food up and down her arms towards one of the tables near the window. “How could this have happened? When could it?”

“Julia mentioned that the hall doors were unlocked when she came early yesterday morning to prepare for the Twelve Drummers’ performance,” Tom mused. “And she said she thought she was the first in. So either Joyce Pike didn’t lock up the evening before, or Joyce had been in even earlier than Julia.”

“Then how had Julia expected to get in?”

“I guess she would have called on Joyce.”

“But Joyce isn’t the only one with a key, you know. All sorts have keys. Members of the parish council, members of the different clubs—the art group, the WI … Belinda has one because the Mothers’ Union meets at the village hall. I expect Julia has her own key.”

But Tom’s thoughts had taken a different track. “When did you close the pub Sunday night?”

“The usual. Ten-thirty.”

Tom’s mind took a bird’s-eye view of the village. In daylight anyone accessing the village hall had a decent chance of being witnessed. After sunset, with no street lighting, secrecy was better assured. The village was pitch. If you didn’t have a torch, and you were unfamiliar with the roads and lanes, you had to grope your way, orienting yourself by running your hands over the stone walls that demarcated villagers’ properties. Still, evening activity—particularly in the vicinity of the pub—wasn’t absent. If you stepped out of the
pub into Church Lane, you might look left, up Pennycross Road in the direction of the village hall. You might, in the bit of light reflected from the pub, see someone disappear into the darkness up the road, or appear out of it.

“I suppose you didn’t see anything … unusual Sunday evening?”

Eric shook his head. “It was a Sunday evening like all Sunday evenings. Even though it was Bank Holiday, all we had in were a few of the regular punters.” He glanced around the pub, as if reimagining the scene that night. “And if you’re wondering if I saw anything unusual in the lane, no. I think Belinda served a couple at one of the outside tables early in the evening, but I stayed inside. After that couple had finished their supper, the outside tables were empty. Once it gets dark, people tend to come in where it’s cosy. It’s May. It’s still a bit cool in the evenings.”

“What about after closing?”

Eric shook his head again. “When we push the stragglers out the door and we’re done clearing, I always step out and have a fag. But that can be near midnight. It’s lovely, dead quiet. The village is peaceful and by that time the floodlights on the church have switched off, so I can see the stars.” He released a sigh like a bellows and a kind of dopey grin settled on his face. “Sometimes I think it’s the only moment of peace I get.”

Tom smiled and waited.

“Anyway,” Eric continued, “Sunday late was calm as the millpond in July. Some nights there’re a few teenage yobs about. And sometimes someone is driving back into the village from some outing in Torquay or wherever. But not this Sunday.”

“I suppose a postmortem might narrow timing.” Tom reflected that it hadn’t in Lisbeth’s case. It hadn’t mattered; her wound had been too fresh when he had found her body.

Eric crossed his arms over his burly chest and peered into the middle distance. “There were visitors to the village, it being Bank Holiday weekend and all, and there’s folk in many of the holiday
cottages. That couple who had supper here Sunday, for instance. Perhaps one of them is a murderous raving loony.”

“Meaning Sybella’s death was a random act by some mentally ill stranger?”

“Well … yes. I guess that’s what I’ve been assuming. Some nutter got into the hall somehow and picked up whatever stick was lying about and …” A kind of dawning flashed in Eric’s eyes. “You don’t mean … you don’t really think this was … deliberate, planned. What’s the word?”

“ ‘Premeditated’? I don’t know. It’s horrible to think it, but it’s a possibility, isn’t it? Did the police say anything to Belinda?”

A faint look of horror crossed Eric’s features. “That means it could be someone from the village. I’m not sure what’s worse. Having it be a stranger or having it be your neighbour. Whatever it is,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “once it becomes common knowledge it’s murder, it’s going to put the boot up this village’s arse. Won’t be good for trade. Everyone will stay home and lock their doors.”

Tom raised a censorious eyebrow.

“That was an afterthought,” Eric added hastily, snatching up his cloth again and rubbing vigorously at the counter. “Then why kill her? Sybella was just a kid, really. Maybe it was someone from outside after all—but with a motive. Someone from London? Someone in her past?”

“Nineteen-year-olds don’t usually have much of a past.”

“Sybella lived a little faster than most.”

“But not in Thornford, according to Colm.”

“Still … Never mind.” He continued, speaking through closed teeth, “Here’s Sebastian just come in. You can discuss this with him and it won’t go any farther. That man could do self-possession for England. Sebastian!” Eric boomed. “The usual?”

“And a roast beef sandwich, if you can do that,” Sebastian said, examining the chalkboard with the lunch specials.

“You could come have lunch at the vicarage. I’m sure Mrs. P. has enough to feed the Household Cavalry.”

“That’s very kind, Tom. I think I’d like to be alone.”

Tom noted a copy of
Cricket World
under Sebastian’s arm. The verger stood almost at attention, his other hand behind his back, as Eric shouted the food order into the kitchen. The way Sebastian carried himself made Tom wonder at times if he had been in the army, or gone to a very good prep school, or been in a monastery, or passed through some other demanding institution. He would have asked, but Sebastian gently but firmly managed to deflect enquiry. It was as if he were swaddled in one of those force fields that attend creatures in science fiction films. Simply asking who his people were had led to the rather cheerless statement—though equably relayed—that he had lost connection to his family. Probing further seemed churlish. Tom had thought at times of looking for Sebastian’s CV—it had to be somewhere in the middens of paper he’d inherited from his previous incumbents—but Sebastian was such a thoroughly conscientious verger, meticulous in his care of St. Nicholas’s and its furnishings and relics, diligent in his liturgical duties, that there seemed to be no reason to do so, other than idle curiosity. Noting Sebastian absent his gardening kit—he was wearing jeans, true, but the white shirt was dress, not T—Tom asked:

“You haven’t been up to see the colonel, by any chance, have you?”

“I’ve just returned.”

“And how is he?”

Sebastian had heavy lips, a contrast to the subtle shadows and planes of the rest of his face, but they thinned to a line before he replied, “Not well.”

“I’m paying a visit this afternoon.”

Eric set down Sebastian’s drink. “And I’m sending Daniel up with some grapes and a decent apology.”

“He didn’t deliberately push the colonel over—” Tom began.

“Nevertheless …!”

“I think Phillip might appreciate a visit when he gets home,” Sebastian said gravely, taking a sip of his ale while Eric, grunting noncommittally, moved down the bar to serve another customer.

Sebastian turned to study the room for an empty table.

“One thing,” Tom said. “We have a funeral on Friday.”

“Sybella?”

Tom nodded, studied Sebastian’s eyes a moment, searching for some hint of foreknowledge. “There seems to be every indication that Sybella’s death was neither accident nor suicide.”

Sebastian held his gaze for the time it took to absorb the implications of Tom’s phrasing, then dropped his eyes. “I see,” he said, then gave an odd little nod, as if bowing to the inevitability of fate, and headed to a table near the fireplace that a couple appeared to be vacating.

Was he wrong, Tom wondered, or had he seen a flicker of fear in Sebastian’s eyes?

Eric broke into his thoughts. “Are you any wiser to the ways of the world than you were a few minutes ago?”

“Meaning?”

“Him. Sebastian.” Eric motioned with his head.

Tom laughed and drained the last of his glass. He moved to leave, but he was arrested by the ruminative expression on Eric’s face. He followed the publican’s gaze into the saloon, past the departing couple, to the table where Sebastian was sitting, folding his magazine open. Then Eric snapped his fingers in the universal gesture of enlightenment. He smiled at Tom, satisfaction wreathing his plump cheeks. He said:

“I’ve just remembered what I’d forgot I’d remembered!”

“Y
ou don’t happen to know how the colonel is?” Tom hailed Alastair, crossing paths with him as he exited the pay-and-display at Torbay Hospital.

“I’m told his pain’s being managed.” His brother-in-law replied with the air of a man who’d done a day’s work and was off to the links. “He was X-rayed in emergency yesterday. The head of his right femur is broken, which should put him in line for a hip replacement, but—”

“Risky at his age—an operation like that.”

“I was just about to say, Tom.” Alastair raised an eyebrow. “There’s going to be some wait-and-see. He does have some underlying health problems—high blood pressure, for instance. The orthopaedic consultant will monitor him for the next few days.”

“And if it’s thought he can’t withstand surgery?”

“His bones won’t knit on their own. The only other option would be for Phillip to go into some sort of care. He’d have to spend the rest of his life on a morphine drip.” He paused. “For a man his age, though, Phillip is in reasonably decent shape.”

“Well, you’d know. You are his GP,” Tom responded, realising he had unconsciously echoed Julia’s very words, which he’d overheard the day before, at the May Fayre, shortly after the Twelve Drummers Drumming had completed its performance and before word seeped out into the holiday crowd that a tragedy greater than an elderly gentleman’s mishap had been visited on the village hall. Only Julia had inflected the words differently and more emphatically.