A Village Deception (Turnham Malpas 15) (26 page)

A voice said in commanding tones, ‘Stay where you are!’ Paddy couldn’t think who’d spoken.

‘You dare move one inch from that sofa. Just you try. I mean it.’

There it was again. That voice.

‘If I have to chain you to it for the next four weeks, I shall. You’re not getting out of this, Paddy Cleary. Believe me, I’ll die first. We are destined for one another. You may not believe it now, but you will. I have never in all my life met anyone I would want to have sleeping with me for the next forty or more years. Understand? I’ve haven’t reached thirty-five without opportunities, but believe me or believe me not, you are the
only
man I have ever met to whom I would give that opportunity. Right? Waking up and seeing your face on the pillow next to
me every day for the rest of my life is all I want, even when we are both really old. Not good enough for me! That’s … that’s … that’s balderdash.’

‘Balderdash?’

‘Yes. Rubbish, nonsense, silly, foolish, total madness. To me …’ Tamsin tapped her chest sharply, ‘to me, you are the man I want. Right? And I’m not going to let you go. So. What do you have to say to that?’

Tamsin stood in front of him, arms akimbo, lips pressed tightly into a thin line, waiting. Her mouth began to tremble with laughter but she grimly held her stance. For a moment she thought Paddy was going to begin smiling too, but he didn’t, and then he couldn’t hold it back and before they knew it, they were both laughing their heads off.

Momentarily, Paddy controlled his laughter and said, ‘I meant it. I really did.’

‘I know you did. You frightened the life out of me. Don’t you dare do that again.’

‘I daren’t, not after that telling off. Help! What have I done? I’m marrying a harridan.’

‘A lovely one though.’ Tamsin flung herself down onto the sofa beside him and clutched him to her. ‘Oh, Paddy! I love you so much.’

‘And I love you, too.’

‘Isn’t it lovely? The two of us finding each other, don’t you think?’

‘After the life I’ve led, it’s like reaching paradise, being with you.’

‘I’m no angel, you know. I have a temper the like of which …’

‘After that exhibition I know you have.’

Tamsin sat upright. ‘And I hate shellfish, I never eat ’em.’

‘Neither do I, so that’s all right.’

‘And I’ve never learned to ride a bike.’

‘That’s OK. I don’t like bikes, far too energetic.’

‘And another thing, I can’t go on rides like the Big Dipper, they make me terribly sick.’

‘We’ll avoid those then.’

‘And there’s something else you ought to know …’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t like lovemaking first thing in the morning.’

‘Better make a note of that.’ He took out his diary and wrote in it. ‘Doesn’t want sex before breakfast. Anything else while I’ve got my diary out?’ He sat there, pen poised, looking at her.

‘I shall get my hair cut off in time for the wedding.’

‘What?’

‘I’m getting my hair cut off, to just about two inches long all over. I’ve always worn it long so a change would be good. What do you think?’

Paddy protested. ‘I love your hair just as it is.’

‘Oh! I see, all right then. That doesn’t mean to say I shall keep it long for ever. I have an independent spirit and you’d better accept that before we embark on this marriage business.’

‘Right.’ Paddy made another note in his diary. ‘Anything else?’

‘I have a very loving heart and I love you and only you. And always will.’

They had a long kiss then, to seal some kind of deeper understanding between them.

‘I’d better go.’

‘Yes you had, or the promise we made to each other could be broken and I don’t want that.’

‘Neither do I.’

As he walked down Shepherd’s Hill, Paddy’s heart felt as if it was going to leap out of his chest with joy. When he got back to Greta’s he gave her his mother’s letter to read.

She was amazed. ‘I thought you said …’

‘Yes, I know. It’s come as a shock. I never thought she’d find the money, never mind the time, to come. And learning to
drive, I can’t believe it. She doesn’t say what’s changed her so much, does she?’

‘No. I wonder, would she like to stay with us, do you think?’

‘I was going to ask if you would mind.’

‘I’d love her to stay. Would she mind?’

‘I think she’d be delighted.’

‘Good. That’s settled then. You know, Paddy, marrying Tamsin is doing you good. You look ten years younger.’ She reached towards him and kissed his cheek. ‘We’re so looking forward to the wedding, but I shall miss you, you know, living with us. It’s been great having you here. I miss my boys. Still, there it is.’

‘Won’t they ever come back?’

Greta shook her head. ‘In Canada they are. They daren’t come back ’cos of what happened. They were two very naughty boys. Well, Kenny was and our Terry did whatever he was told. Barry’s lovely, as you know, but I miss the other two.’

‘Have you never thought about going to see them?’

‘Never had the money and I don’t know if we’d be welcome anyway. But there we are, I’ve got you instead and that’s enough for me. Reception organised?’

‘Oh yes. Georgie’s being wonderful. We shall have the whole of the Royal Oak for ourselves that day until 6 p.m. It’ll be classed as a private function, you see.’

‘I don’t know if Tamsin’s told you, but she’s asked Vince to give her away. She said she thought it would please you.’

‘Vince? I didn’t know that. She’s hasn’t said.’

‘Don’t let on. She hasn’t got a dad of her own you see, has she? Vince is that proud.’

‘Ah! Right. Couldn’t have happened to a better man. I’m so pleased. All we have to hope for is wonderful weather.’

‘They say the sun shines on the righteous.’

‘Best behave myself then.’

‘I’ll get supper. Enjoy every minute of looking forward to
your wedding, Paddy, and don’t let thinking you’re not good enough for her put a stop to it. Understood?’

Paddy had to smile, he’d come so close to doing that very thing. He nodded in reply to Greta’s advice. Thank God for Tamsin and her down-to-earth approach to life. He could sense that the best part of his life was still to come. And he had to admit that he was looking forward to his mother coming, if only to find out about the change in her fortunes. Perhaps it meant that either his mother had given his dad the elbow, or he was no longer on the scene, namely that he was dead. Hallelujah to that!

Sykes, bereft of his best friend Harry, had been taken in again by Grandmama Charter-Plackett. She didn’t want him, not any more, but what was one to do with him? He was ownerless all over again. He really wasn’t having much luck just lately and that kindly corner of her heart she kept for her family and her dearest friends, though there weren’t many of those left nowadays, decided that, despite her better judgement, she’d better have him back with her.

Sykes accepted his change of circumstances with a good heart and kept to his routine as closely as she allowed. She didn’t really approve of dogs wandering about all on their own, but he knew the village and its environs so well that he wasn’t likely to go missing and because he was so well behaved she allowed him to roam within reason. His favourite place was the church, followed by trotting across Home Park round the lake and up the stairs to where Harry used to work. When he found Harry wasn’t there any longer, Sykes dropped the office from his route, and instead popped home via Sykes Wood. This was a much longer way round but there were plenty of rabbit warrens to stick his nose down and it made for a much more interesting way home than covering the same ground across Home Park.

Without fail, he always managed to come home just as clean as when he left it, mainly because he hated the rain so tended to stay home on muddy days. Then, two days in succession, Grandmama had to wash him all the way up his short legs and along his chest before she would allow him in the house.
‘Digging for rabbits, I expect, you scoundrel. You should bring one home and we could have it for dinner. I’m good at skinning rabbits. I bet you didn’t know that, did you? Off you go.’

She laughed at herself for conversing with a dog, but somehow one always had the feeling he knew exactly what one said. Harry had said that very same thing. Pity him turning out to be a first-class thief, though she supposed being charming was part of his stock-in-trade.

When Sykes came home three times up to his elbows in soil, his claws and pads thick with the stuff, she decided to keep him in and take him out herself the next day for a walk on the extending lead she’d bought the first time he’d been hers.

She intended crossing Home Park, a short trip round the lake, and then home but Sykes had other ideas. He insisted on going on into Sykes Wood. ‘Oh! Well, all right then. But that’s it, definitely it, otherwise I shall be in bed for a week after this and look at the time, it’s already ten minutes past ten, and so far I’ve done nothing this morning. You’re spoiled to death, Sykes, you little charmer.’

She climbed with difficulty over the stile and began admiring the beautiful green trees, now in their full summer prime. The lead kept getting twisted round the tree trunks as Sykes dashed about sniffing for rabbits but she tolerated that, after all he’d only come in because she allowed him to, so it was her fault. Suddenly he disappeared the full length of the extending lead and was pulling so strongly on it that she could do nothing but follow where he led.

He rounded a huge beech tree in the very densest part of the wood and began digging. ‘So this is where you’ve been getting so muddy, you’ve been digging and digging here, haven’t you?’ She saw he’d dug and dug, first in one place and then another. And here he was, at it again. She became wary, his digging appeared so purposeful, as though he knew something she didn’t. There was more to this dog than she’d ever imagined … ‘Oh
my God!’ Surely it couldn’t be …‘Come away, Sykes!’ She reeled in the extending leash as fast as she could; the trouble was, it brought her closer to what she knew by instinct she wouldn’t want to recognise. ‘My God. It is!’

A gold, high-heeled shoe she’d last seen being worn by … ‘Oh no! Come away, Sykes. Leave!’ But the serious state of agitation she found herself in made her relax her hold on the leash and Sykes plunged immediately towards the shoe and picked it up. Right there in front of her, he worried the shoe as though it were a rat, then went back to digging. This time he exposed not a shoe, but the bare foot of its owner. It was only partly revealed, sticking up out of the soil at a peculiar angle.

Grandmama screamed as she had never screamed before. On and on, screaming and screaming, with Sykes free to dig as he wished, except she didn’t want him to dig any more. Finally, she pulled herself together, reeled in the leash until he was beside her and began to run. And running was not her forte. She didn’t know where she was going. She kept getting hit in the face by branches that stuck out over the path, stumbling on stones, turning her ankles on the roughest bits and, once or twice, narrowly avoided falling over Sykes. Eventually, she had to pull up to get her breath. Was that a chink of light there through the trees? Had she reached the stile in Shepherd’s Hill? Please God! That’s it, it is. She was right. She breathed long and deep, then headed for the stile, struggled over it, threaded Sykes through and went straight away to Laburnum Cottage.

She fell on the knocker and banged it continuously until Marie and Zack came running to answer it. The sight of Grandmama, dishevelled, perspiring, her immaculate hairstyle blown to pieces, clothes in disarray, and gasping for breath came as something of a shock to them both.

‘Why Mrs Charter-Plackett, whatever’s the matter?’ The relief of reaching civilisation brought the realisation
to Grandmama of just what a horrific thing had happened to her.‘S-S-Sykes has found a body in the w-wood. It’s terrible.’

‘A body?’ Zack didn’t believe her. People were always talking about Sykes Wood, saying it was haunted and such but no one had ever said they’d found a body before.

‘Now, come now. You’ve frightened yourself. Who’d put a body in the wood? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Get the p-police. It’s … Venetia, I-I’m sure.’ Whereupon Grandmama fell in a dead faint on their doorstep.

Sergeant MacArthur appeared first on the scene, before the detectives came from Culworth in response to the 999 call. He rang for an ambulance for Grandmama, and called the police in Culworth again while Marie tried to bring Grandmama round. Zack held on to poor Sykes who couldn’t be let in the house until Zack had washed him down. Then they thought better of it, in case the soil on his legs held clues.

Marie rang Jimbo and explained as gently as she could about Grandmama and the body.

‘A body in Sykes Wood? Whose body?’

‘She said she thought … Well … She’s sure it’s Venetia, you see.’

‘Venetia? Dead? In the wood? But she’s gone to her mother’s.’

‘Your mother says she’s buried in the wood. Sykes dug up first her shoe, those gold strappy things only Venetia could wear, and then, well believe it or not, her foot. She’s seen her shoe and then her foot. Your mother’s going to hospital because she fainted on our doorstep. Do you want to go with her in the ambulance? If so, come right now.’