Body in the Woods (A Reverend Annabelle Dixon Cozy Mystery Book 3) (23 page)

In fact, Annabelle spent a huge amount of time in her car and had built up a warm affection for the automobile that she lovingly kept pristine. In her more whimsical moods, she could even fancy that it spoke to her. It was almost as though the thrum of its engine indicated its contentment like the purr of a cat, while the gentle squeak of its seat as she sat on it was like a greeting from an old friend. Even the bumps and wheezes of its wheels as it navigated humps in the road sounded like the grunts and groans of an old man hurdling an obstacle.

The musical tics and idiosyncrasies of her Mini were like a song she knew intimately, which is why she found herself increasingly bothered by the weakened sound of the engine as she made her way to the hamlet at Folly’s Bottom. She had intended to discuss the failing attempts to raise funds for the cemetery renovations with a parish council member there, but she had barely reached the halfway point of the ten-mile trip when the Mini Cooper’s trials grew noticeably worse.

 “What on earth is the matter with you?” She pressed the accelerator harder and found the Mini struggling to respond with its typical ready increase in pace.

For the next half-mile, the Mini’s engine weakly hummed at an almost inaudible level, occasionally sputtering back into life again with a snap, only to trail off once more. Eventually, Annabelle’s fear became a reality – the car stopped entirely.

Annabelle turned the key back and forth a few times in an attempt to get the car started, but the Mini only offered a limp whine in response. Breathing deeply, Annabelle refused to get angry. Instead, she lifted her gaze to the ceiling of the car and silently demanded an explanation from God.

Tightening her coat around her, she stepped out into the chilly wind and closed the door. For a brief moment, she considered checking beneath the hood for the cause of the car’s problems but quickly realized that would be of little use. Annabelle’s passion for driving did not extend to a mechanical aptitude, and she didn’t want to make anything worse. She looked in both directions up and down the road, and with one final huff and frown, she began marching her way back toward Upton St. Mary and the local car workshop and gas station, owned by local woman Mildred Smith and rather unimaginatively named Mildred’s Garage.

A short way into her trek, Annabelle decided to take a shortcut and avoid the need to walk along a large curve in the road that went around a farmhouse. She took a small, rough path, fenced on both sides by the  fields and surrounding hills. For a few minutes, Annabelle was rather pleased and allowed herself to feel pride in her knowledge of Upton St. Mary’s surrounding web of footpaths, farms, lanes, and fields.

Her sense of triumph proved brief, however, when soon into her walk she found the entire way ahead obstructed by a densely packed herd of cows, moving slowly along toward their milking shed.

“Excuse me!” Annabelle politely asked them, as she tottered and nudged them to find a gap. “Vicar coming through!” 

She quickly realized the animals were – rather rudely, in her opinion – in no mood to let her pass, their stoic faces uninterested in her pleas and their large bodies incapable of moving at a greater speed anyway. Annabelle gazed beyond the large mass of white, brown, and black to find farmer Leo Tremethick at their head.

“Leo! Over here! Leo!” she called, waving her arms frantically like a woman drowning at sea.

The tweed-suited figure in the distance briefly turned and removed his flat cap to wave back at the Reverend. Annabelle smiled widely, thinking that the farmer would surely do something to allow her to pass, but instead he merely smiled back, gestured toward the cows and shrugged his shoulders apologetically. The meaning was clear – there was nothing he could do. He shouted something which Annabelle couldn’t quite make out over the sound of cows mooing and hooves clopping, then turned back to trudge on in front of them.

“I know that you cows are God’s creatures,” Annabelle exclaimed, as she narrowly avoided yet another cowpat, “But I really must say, you’re showing very little respect for the authority of the church!”

For a full twelve minutes, Annabelle inched forward through the muddy, cowpat-filled path behind the herd, pulled along only by the prospect of treating herself to a nice slice of Victoria sandwich cake at the end of it. When the cows finally turned off into their milking shed, she hurried forward into the junction where the path rejoined the road.

As she made her way to the garage, which was situated on the outskirts of the village alongside one of its largest family pubs, Annabelle found herself with plenty of time to notice her surroundings, including the occasional car that sped by. One of them struck her in particular, a black, sporty Mercedes Benz with dark tinted windows. It was the kind of car one would usually encounter outside a nightclub in a bustling city, so it stood out starkly in this part of the world. The villagers of Upton St. Mary, and indeed, the wealthier families who lived in the mansions and estates surrounding the village, had rather conservative tastes in cars. SUVs, the odd BMW, possibly a classic British sports car, or luxury sedan were the most expensive vehicles that you were likely to find in the roads through and around Upton St. Mary. Most people drove pickup trucks, small hatchbacks, or minivans. The very notion of blacked-out windows seemed preposterous. Annabelle wondered just who could possibly be driving such a car, or even more intriguingly, why they would feel the need to hide themselves away as they did.

Her ruminations were quickly broken, however, when a small van pulled up beside her. She recognized it immediately and walked up to the passenger side window.

“Alfred Roper!” Annabelle called as greeting. “How are you? Off to a job?”

“Aye, Vicar. Busy weekend.”

Alfred had become well-known for his wonderful gardening and landscaping skills during the thirty-odd years he had been tending to the grounds of larger houses in the area. He was almost sixty, yet the fresh air and physical nature of his work gave him a fit, powerful bearing. His brown eyes and grizzled beard were rarely accompanied by anything but a pleasant smile, and Annabelle always enjoyed his company.

“But not too busy that I can’t give you a lift,” he continued with a wink. “Hop in.”

Annabelle clapped her hands in glee and eagerly stepped inside the earthy-smelling van, its comforting warmth making her realize how cold she had been previously.

“Oh, thank you so much, Albert. My car—”

“Broke down on the road to Folly’s Bottom? Aye, I just passed it,” Albert said in his gruff voice.

“Yes,” Annabelle chuckled. “If you could just drop me off-— “

“At Mildred’s Garage? Of course, Vicar.”

Annabelle smiled and settled into the seat.

“Well, I owe you a cup of tea for this at the very least, Alfred. Do drop by the church if you find the time.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Vicar, I always offer anyway. In fact, you’re the fourth person I’ve picked up from the roadside this week.”

Annabelle turned her head toward Alfred with a look of disbelief.

“Really?” she said.

“Aye,” he said, chuckling slightly as he noticed her reaction. “If you ask me, it’s all these new
technologies
they keep sticking in the cars. So many dongles and apps and mp3s and i-whatsits – something’s bound to go wrong! I don’t even trust automatic transmissions, myself,” he said, patting his gearstick affectionately.

“But Alfred, my car is a Mini! It might have go-faster stripes, but it’s hardly tricked out with all the latest doo-dads! It’s a
manual
, for heaven’s sake!”

Alfred shrugged slowly before turning his chin up in a musing gesture. “Probably the spark plugs then. Yeah. That’ll be it.”

He pulled the van over to the curb in front of Mildred’s garage and nodded his head politely as Annabelle effusively offered her gratitude and the promise of a cup of tea once more. She waved as he sped off to his next job and walked over to the short, wide building that housed Mildred’s workshop.

Though the building had seen better days – its paint was peeling, and both of the large metal shutters that fronted the workshop were rusting – the reputation of the garage was spotless. Since inheriting it from her father, Eric, nearly thirty-five years earlier, Mildred had overseen most of the villagers’ very first cars, their upgrades to family vehicles, and, for the more successful community members, their luxury vehicles and sports cars. In many respects, Annabelle often thought, Mildred was much like a vicar herself, witnessing and supporting people through the gravest and grandest milestones of their lives.

Though the world had changed and most vehicles were now computers on wheels, Mildred’s was still a comforting first port of call for many when a knocking noise started up, a tire ran flat, or a simple oil change was needed. In many respects, much of the garage’s popularity was down to its old-fashioned values. People knew they would get a job well done at Mildred’s for a fair price – and more often than not, plenty of courtesy and a cup of tea thrown in. She – or her assistants – would even pump people’s gas for them, a luxury long since abandoned just about everywhere else in England.

Despite being sixty-two, Mildred was enthusiastic, gnarly, and as strong as an ox – though only half the size. Annabelle marched up the front lot, in between the vintage cars (restoration projects Mildred enjoyed in her spare time), scanning for a glimpse of her frizzy red hair.

“Mildred!” she called, as she drew closer to the garage. “Mildred! It’s Annabelle!”

One of the front shutters was open, a small hatchback neatly parked inside. Annabelle noticed the peculiar silence that seemed to permeate the garage. She visited regularly, at least once a week to fuel up, and got regular check-ups throughout the year, but she had never seen it as quiet as this. It often seemed that Mildred spent every waking hour at the garage, hammering or clanking away at some problem or dealing with the phone calls that seemed to interrupt her work every few minutes. On the few occasions she was away, one of her assistants would be there: Pete, a grizzled man in his forties who always wore the pained, despondent expression of a man recovering from a hangover, or Aziz, the teenage apprentice who would, to the chagrin of his colleagues, blare hip hop music from a device on his workbench as he worked.

Annabelle stepped into the garage, around the hatchback, and alongside the cluttered workbench.

“Pete! Aziz! Anyone?!”

She knew Mildred well enough to know that neither she nor her assistants would leave the garage unattended like this – not without a notice of some kind – unless something was severely amiss. She strode back into the center of the garage, spinning around as she scanned its walls and the two bays.

Apart from the hatchback, there was no other vehicle inside, and with the garage’s open plan, there were few nooks and crannies to investigate. Annabelle paced anxiously, keenly studying everything around her for something out of the ordinary.

 Just as she was about to go outside and walk around the garage in search of clues, she crouched suddenly and looked beneath the small car in the middle of the workshop floor. It was dark, the lights of the inspection pit beneath the car were off. She strained to remember what such pits looked like. At the far end, toward the back of the pit, Annabelle thought she noticed something sticking out. A tool of some kind. She stood up, walked around, and crouched once more to see what it was and whether it could illuminate the mystery of the empty garage.

“Oh dear God!” Annabelle suddenly squealed, pulling back and covering her mouth.

It was no tool.

It was nothing mechanical of any kind.

It was a hand.

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Grave in the Garage
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