Fete Fatale (18 page)

We went into the sitting-room, lighter than when I had seen it last. Mary was wearing the same drab grey dress as she had had on then: as I suspected, she had anticipated my coming, and this was her wear for funerary parties. She left me for a moment to put on a kettle. How much more appropriate, I thought, if Mary had had a little maid to bully and to train up in the ways of gentility. Who knows—with so much teenage unemployment, Mary might yet manage it. The times were ripe for a return to semi-serfdom.

When Mary returned from the kitchen, with a plate of cakes and one of sandwiches that must have been prepared in advance ‘in case', she had got her little speech nicely prepared:

‘I don't want to say too much, Helen, or to open up wounds that
are healing, but
how
we are all going to miss Marcus. Sophronia Tibbles
instinctively
knows, I'm sure of it. I can't
think
who I'm to take her to now.'

Sophronia Tibbles gazed balefully at her mistress from a chair in the corner, as if she resented having human feelings attributed to her by so foolish a human as her mistress.

‘Simon Fox is an excellent vet,' I said.

‘But the sympathy, my dear, the quiet sympathy, the warmth of understanding that Marcus had for animals . . . '

‘He did have a very good basket-side manner,' I said briskly. But I pulled myself back. I intended this interview to retain at least a patina of the Hexton conventionalities, so I certainly shouldn't show my sharper side too early. I added: ‘You're quite right. The animals will miss him.'

So it was Marcus the vet we were missing, was it, I thought, as Mary went back to the kitchen. Not a word about Marcus the churchwarden. Was she going to keep the conventionalities on pussies and doggies for the entire visit? Not if I could help it.

‘It's a gift,' said Mary determinedly, coming back with a tray of cups and jugs. ‘And Marcus just had it.'

‘Quite,' I said. ‘And he was very good with humans too, you know, though he did feel he had failed with them, over the last few weeks of his life.'

‘Don't you think, my dear,' said Mary, who was presiding over the pouring, and who had assumed an expression of ineffable complacency, ‘that that is a subject that we would do best to avoid? When is the funeral to take place?'

I bit into a sandwich. Cress again. Mary must have registered how much I disliked it.

‘I really don't know. When the police release the body.'

‘And will his family come? Isn't his father a clergyman? So very appropriate, I always thought.'

‘A dead clergyman, I'm afraid. But his mother is still alive, and he had brothers and sisters. Yes, I'm sure they'll all come.' I added, since this gave me an opening: ‘Family can be helpful on such occasions—if they're the right sort of family. It must have been trying, for you, being on your own.'

‘But of course I couldn't have expected Philip to come—not from Australia,' Mary replied hurriedly.

‘I suppose you couldn't. And John—?'

‘Couldn't come. Have a sandwich, dear. So interesting that Marcus in a way grew up in the Church—'

In her haste to escape from the topic of her brothers, Mary had plunged into the very subject she had suggested we avoid.

‘Quite,' I said. ‘Tinged with the ecclesiastic from birth. One of his brothers, in fact, went into a monastery—'

‘Ah!' said Mary significantly. ‘He
went over
, did he?'

‘Oh, only on a short visit. He found he had no vocation. Now he teaches the
Marxism Today
course for the Open University. He really had very little in common with Marcus. Marcus, you know, was never one for extremes.'

‘No, quite. An ability to smooth over differences is so valuable—though of course it's dangerous if it leads to
compromises.
'

‘That, surely, is what it normally has to lead to.'

‘But some of us—I don't think your Marcus always understood this, or sympathized—some of us are people of conviction. We know that in some areas there
can
be no compromise—that compromise is an abdication of responsibility.' (Oh God—she's getting a Thatcher complex, I thought.) ‘Our little differences—and I hope they were never more than that, and that they didn't become
personal
in any way—came about precisely for that reason. I did not believe that we could allow the Bishop to foist on us a man who is virtually a priest—positively a Catholic priest! It was a matter of faith, and the practice of that faith, so naturally there could be no compromise.'

‘Fortunately,' I said, with the intention of provoking, ‘that little matter seems to have sorted itself out now. Most people seem to have accepted Father Battersby quite happily.'

‘Oh no, dear.' Again that aggravating little smile of complacent knowing-better. ‘I don't think you'll find that is so. Of course, on Sunday people were upset and confused—quite understandably so. But I've been doing my best, stiffening resolves—'

‘I'm sure you have—'

‘—and you'll find that next week we shall see a quite different picture emerge. I know you can't have a great deal of sympathy with me, Helen dear, over this, having been brought up in a quite different spiritual tradition, or perhaps really none at all, isn't that
right, dear? But it's something I know in my bones I have to do. As one of the leaders of this little community.'

Self-proposed and self-elected, I thought.

‘I'm afraid,' I said, ‘that I've always had a tendency to distrust leaders.'

‘I know you have, Helen dear. You've always made that quite clear, but you nevertheless are wrong. People in the mass are so easily confused, so readily get hold of the wrong end of the stick, so easily miss the
ethical
point. You'll find, if you look around, that each little community throws up a few natural leaders.'

‘And you think Hexton has thrown up you?'

‘Perhaps in some degree you might say that I inherited the position,' she said, undented in her self-approval, and pressing another cress sandwich on me as a sign that she forgave my tone. ‘Though I hope it may be said too that I managed to make my own little contribution to the community's welfare, even while poor Mother was alive. Now, with Thyrza about to depart, it is clear that a very
special
kind of responsibility is going to fall on my shoulders. People will be looking up to me more and more for guidance.' (Oh God—a Pope complex, I thought.) ‘I accept the challenge. I do not intend to disappoint them.'

‘Mary,' I asked, ‘what were you doing in the later stages of Saturday afternoon?'

‘Ah—' she said, with another forbearing smile. ‘I thought you were going to ask that. I know that Thyrza took a strong line with you over the matter. But I feel we ought to make allowances. It's natural you should take an interest.'

‘Good of you,' I murmured.

‘Well, on Saturday, as you know, I arrived at the fête around midday, I think, and of course I went around in the tent a great deal—up and down the aisles, having a word here, a word there. People who've put in voluntary effort need a pat on the back, don't you feel? And I went around, showing my appreciation.' (A Lady Godetia complex, I thought.) ‘And of course I bought a little something here, bestowed a word of praise there, trying to do my little bit. That took me up to—let me see—about three or so.'

‘You talked,' I said (avoiding the phrase ‘had a session' only by inches), ‘with Lady Godetia.'

‘Quite. Dear Godetia. Community business, you know.
Such
an
interest she takes, though I do sometimes feel in her case that the spiritual dimension is lacking. Where was I? Oh yes, three o'clock. Well, about then, or possibly a shade later, I went outside, watching the various games, talking a little to members of the choir—
weren't
they good this year?—and, let me see . . . '

‘You talked to Marcus?'

‘Yes! Precisely. I talked to Marcus. Dreadful to think that I was one of the last to see him alive.'

‘Yes, dreadful. Where was this, and what did you both say?'

‘Oh dear—I have to be precise about this, though in fact the police have asked me about it as well. Now, I'd been down to the river, to talk to one of the mothers—she was letting her little girl bathe
naked
in the river, and though it was only a tot, we all know there are people, terrible people, who can so easily be given
ideas
 . . . And of course she saw my point. After that, I was strolling back towards the games, when I saw Marcus walking
away
from the fête, and the games, quite fast . . . '

‘Walking
after
someone, do you mean?'

‘I really couldn't say, dear. There were people all around, coming and going. I just assumed he was wanting to get back home, to have a little break from his duties.'

‘So there wasn't anyone in particular there that he could have been walking after?'

Mary wrinkled her forehead, as if genuinely in thought. Perhaps she would have liked to remember someone.

‘No . . . No, I can't say I noticed anyone in particular. Anyway, what I wanted to emphasize was that Marcus seemed in a hurry, and that was why we didn't exchange many words . . . Because I
hope
we weren't on such terms that we couldn't have a pleasant conversation, should the occasion arise.'

‘But as it was—?'

‘As it was, Marcus smiled, and I smiled, and I think he said what a pleasant day it was, and . . . wasn't the fête going well, and I said yes, and . . . that was it. Positively it.'

‘And then Marcus hurried on?'

‘Yes. Or at least I suppose so.'

‘And you?'

‘I went back towards the games . . . congratulated some of the contestants—rough lads, some of them, but respectful in their
dumb kind of way . . . then I had a word with Mr Horsforth . . . well, quite a conversation, it was, really. About the declining standards of dress at the Grammar School. I know times are said to be hard, but I
cannot
understand how parents can send their children to school in jeans. Jeans! Mr Horsforth agreed with me, of course . . . And then I came home.'

‘When would that be?'

‘Well, really, dear, I didn't time myself. But I think I was home by about a quarter past four. I know I had afternoon tea as soon as I got in.'

‘I see,' I said.

My mind was chewing over this information. If Marcus had gone straight up Castle Wynd and along Castle Walk, then he was probably killed while Mary was having her conversation (assuming she was speaking the truth) with Mr Horsforth. If, on the other hand, he had done something else—what?—first, then he could have met up with Mary again along Castle Walk. Yet Castle Walk was on the way home neither for Mary nor for Marcus.

‘And you stayed at home then?'

‘Yes. Oh, but of course later, when I heard—'

‘Who told you?'

‘Franchita, I think. Yes it was. Poor Franchita: how terrible for
her
fête to end in that way. She was there, too, you know. She
saw—'

‘I was there. I saw.'

‘I
know
, dear. That's why we . . . make allowances. So after I heard, I thought a little, and of course it occurred to me that I just might have been one of the last to see Marcus alive. Now, whatever you may say about me, Helen dear, I am not one to shirk my duty, so I went to the police—'

‘You
went
there—?'

‘Well, dear, the telephone is never quite satisfactory for these things, is it? Yes, I put my coat on, and went to the police station there and then, and told them my little all, though I couldn't see how it could be really important. Anyway, they were most polite and grateful—the Superintendent it was I talked to, of course . . . and I gave them some words of encouragement and support, and told them how Hexton
as a whole
was behind them in their search for this killer.'

Back to Mrs Thatcher, I thought, visiting the police after a bomb outrage. Were Mary Morse's delusions funny, or frightening?

‘You also,' I said brutally, ‘mentioned Lady Godetia.'

‘Lady Godetia?' she echoed, looking at me wide-eyed, with an expression of innocent astonishment on her face. ‘Oh no. I don't think so. What reason could there have been to mention her? No, Helen dear, I think you must have been misinformed there. So
many
people out to cause trouble, aren't there? And then of course I came home and went to bed. Such a tiring day, you know.'

‘Quite. I found it tiring myself. And the next day you and Thyrza went on your bus to wherever-it-was, for your church service?'

‘We did, dear, and I am
not
going to get annoyed by your tone of voice, and I assure you that we were not put out in any way that more did not come with us.' The smile of complacent pity for the weakness of lesser men was fixed rather frighteningly on her face. Great oaks from little acorns, you know. We blazed a trail. I have had many assurances from people who will be following the trail next week. That is what leadership is about, you know. I'm always conscious, in everything I do, that people are looking to me to set a certain standard, and are looking to me for guidance,
moral
guidance. It's a terrible burden and responsibility, but I accept it gladly. In every community there has to be someone to set the standard, someone on whom the rest can model themselves.'

Queen Mary, I thought! Old Queen Mary! As she sat there, ramrod-straight, with that smile of regal self-absorption on her face, I really felt rather frightened. I looked round the room, preparatory to getting up. I'd been aware since I came in that something had been changed in the arrangement since I'd sat here last. Virtually nothing else had—the room was practically a museum to the tastes and habits of Mary's mother, a Morse-oleum—but one thing had. That was it! On the sideboard there was now only one photograph of a Morse boy, not the two that had been there before. As I got up to go, I casually went over and picked it up.