A Village Deception (Turnham Malpas 15) (20 page)

But what nagged him all evening was: Why hadn’t Venetia been in contact? About nine o’clock, Zack banged on the door and walked in. ‘We’ve been waiting for you, Harry, are you not coming? Are you not well?’

‘Sorry, I didn’t realise the time. Yes, of course.’ He grabbed his keys and followed Zack out, with Sykes weaving between his legs, desperate not to be left behind.

As they entered the bar, a sudden silence fell which embarrassed Harry, but Zack saved him by saying, ‘He’s back! You see, I told you he would be. What you having, Harry? A whisky as usual?’

Harry braced himself. ‘Yes, please. Good evening, Marie.’

‘Good evening, Harry. We were getting worried about you.’

‘A family funeral. I had to go rather suddenly.’

Marie patted his arm and then, in a rush of sympathy, kissed
his cheek. ‘Sorry about that. It’s very difficult sometimes, isn’t it?’

Harry nodded. ‘Yes.’ The whisky didn’t help. In fact, it made him more morose than ever. He hadn’t a thought in his head except about Venetia, and self-preservation made him realise that he simply mustn’t mention her.

‘Is Venetia back yet?’ asked Marie, still feeling sympathetic.

‘She’s gone to visit her mother.’

‘Oh! Right. I see.’ Everyone else sitting at the table had waited with bated breath for his reply and were mightily let down by it. ‘Gone to visit her mother.’ Now, that was disappointing. The very least they’d expected was for Harry to come up with a really mind-boggling explanation. It was a load of twaddle that reply of his. She hadn’t got a mother. Well at least, she’d never mentioned a mother. It was a cover-up. Where was she? Their minds ranged over many solutions to her disappearance but none of them had any basis in fact.

The weather was a more interesting subject than Venetia at the moment, and that took some doing because she’d been a compelling subject of conversation since the first day she’d arrived in the village when she and Jeremy had tried to set up the health club that simply didn’t flourish. It was just when they were sinking under massive debts that Craddock Fitch had arrived, bought the whole lot, and saved their bacon.

‘When is it ever going to rain, can anyone tell me?’ asked Zack. ‘I’m sick to death of watering everything day after day, just when I got all my new bedding plants in too. I’ve filled the churchyard flowerbeds with plants, I ’ave, and it’s ’ard work keeping ’em going.’

Willie offered no hope to Zack. ‘No sign of rain, I’m afraid. They were saying on the news this teatime that some reservoirs are already well below what they should be for this time of year.’

‘Rain when you don’t want it, but not when you do,’ moaned Zack.

‘Cheer up,’ said Sylvia. ‘It’ll stop eventually. It always does, you wait and see. Has Peter said any more about selling the church silver?’

Zack shook his head. ‘No. Now that Jimbo’s back, I was hoping for something to happen. But Gilbert’s now in York and you know what it’s like with this digging for old pots and skeletons and that, they have no understanding of time. Another three weeks or three months is all the same to them.’

‘Ask him. Ask Peter. You see him more than we do. After all, you’re all friendly in your shed, aren’t you?’

‘Maggie, I’m not going to ask him. I’m hoping that if no one says anything, he might go off the whole idea.’

‘That’s not very likely now, is it? He’s tenacious, he is. Is that the right word?’

Zack admitted he wasn’t quite sure, but if it meant stubborn, then it was.

Someone burst into the bar full of news. It was Dottie Foskett. ‘Zack! The notice has gone up.’

Zack spluttered his beer back into his glass. He wiped his chin dry and said, ‘You’re not talking about what I’ve just been talking about, are you?’

‘How do I know? It’s the notice about a meeting asking for the villagers’ opinions about the church silver!’

‘What did I say? I knew something was brewing. When is it?’

‘Tuesday next week, at seven-thirty in the church hall.’

‘Ha! Can’t be! That’s the Girl Guides night.’ Zack chuckled at the thought of the rector having made such a foolish mistake. That would teach him. Providence, that was.

‘No it isn’t though. They’ve got that big area rally in Culworth, remember. They’re not meeting here next week.’

Zack muttered, ‘Blast it!’ under his breath.

Dottie said, ‘I know I’m right because the rector was talking about it this morning when I took him his coffee.’

Sylvia wagged her finger at Dottie. ‘I thought you had a
golden rule about not letting on what you learned when you worked in the rectory.’

‘For heaven’s sake, it’s not as if it’s a secret, like letting on where Venetia is.’

There was an instant of breathtaking stillness as they realised what she’d said, their eyes wide with anticipation.

‘You know then?’ asked Sylvia.

Dottie admitted she didn’t. ‘I was only using her as an example of what not to let on about. Why? Do you all know where she is? Harry? Do you?’

It was painful enough having her used as an example but then, to be asked if he knew where Venetia was … ‘Jeremy says she’s gone to her mother’s for some breathing space.’

‘Well,’ said Sylvia, with a wicked grin on her face, ‘you can have too much of a good thing, I suppose.’

It was the undisguised sniggering after that comment which finally drove Harry to leave, with Sykes hard on his heels. Why did they find what was so close to his heart, in fact his whole being, so amusing? It was deadly serious to him, not a matter to laugh at. He plunged his key in the keyhole, hoping against hope that Venetia would be there waiting for him. She wasn’t. Maybe it hadn’t been quite honest to have a key made for her, but it suited him and he was paying the rent after all. But she wasn’t there, and he knew at the bottom of his heart that she wouldn’t be. But gone to see her mother? That didn’t ring true at all. Not Venetia. She would have left him a message somehow. A text. A voicemail. A note in the letterbox. He flung himself down on the sofa and saw Sykes was studying his face. Suddenly Sykes leaped up on the sofa and snuggled against him, his chin resting on Harry’s thigh, his eyes gazing up at him as though offering comfort.

Harry ruffled Sykes’s ears. ‘You’re too wise for a dog, do you know that? Far too wise. She’ll be back, won’t she? Of course she will. We’ll just have to be patient, you and I.’

*

But the day of the big village meeting about the selling of the silver dawned bright and clear with no sign that Venetia was even in the country, let alone about to return. Her disappearance was no longer the big topic of conversation it had been though. It seemed that the only person giving her even a single thought was Harry, and he thought about her every day. Every day he looked for emails from her, any kind of message at all that would provide comfort, but it never happened. In fact, he began to wonder if he’d dreamed about his affair with her; had she actually existed, or was she wholly imagined? Jimbo said nothing about getting a permanent accounts person, so Harry said nothing about leaving either. He struggled along from day to day, barely functioning as a normal human being.

The church hall was almost full fifteen minutes before the meeting was to begin. People from Little Derehams and Penny Fawcett were all squeezed in and Zack was kept busy bringing in more chairs. Even the bench that stayed outside in the churchyard for people to rest on when they came to visit graves was to be used. He’d cleaned the bird dirt off earlier in the day in case it might be needed, and by seven-twenty he’d dragged it in. It was promptly filled with people. Three people were standing and five had hunkered down, leaning against the back wall. Obviously, thought Zack, they all felt as keenly as he did about not selling. But he was wrong. By seven fifty-five he was of the opinion that well over half the people who’d taken the trouble to attend were in favour of selling. He was horrified.

Peter had begun the meeting by explaining his reasons for selling their precious silver. ‘Yes, we own it, or rather the church does, and yes, it is beautiful and precious and yes we use it. But how often? Only three, or at most, four times a year. What good does it do? We love to see it gleaming there on the altar, the floor-standing candle beside it, it fills all our hearts with joy at its beauty, but – and it is a big but – what good does it do
for the spiritual life of the three villages? I can tell you, though you may not agree with me, it does
nothing.
It pleases us, yes. It gives us pride that our church owns such beautiful ornaments, but
ornamental
is
all
they are. A far, far better use of them would be to sell them and use the money to improve the church. The tower needs attention, the interior desperately needs redecorating, and that is just two of the major things that need doing to preserve the building.’

‘The question is, rector, ’ow much will we get for ’em? It might not be enough and then where would we be?’ This was the publican, Bill Montgomery from the Jug and Bottle in Penny Fawcett.

‘These beautiful ornaments, as you call them, rector, are ours and have been for more than two hundred years. That must count for something, surely?’ This was Gilbert Johns, back from York especially for the meeting.

‘We could raise the money for doing the improvements and keep the silver as well?’ said a woman from down Shepherd’s Hill who only ever entered the church at Christmas. A woman Zack knew put only ten pence in the collection plate once a year.

This brought on a rumble of low mutterings from the back row, mainly occupied by the crowd from Penny Fawcett. One of them stood up. ‘I’ve had an idea. If everyone put an extra one hundred pounds in the collection plate this Sunday, that would help, wouldn’t it?’

Someone who preferred to stay well hidden behind the over-large wife of the publican said, ‘And how many Sundays would we have to do that to make up the amount? I know, how about if you set the ball rolling right now? That’s it. Pass the collection plate round right away. Cheques and credit cards accepted.’

The whole atmosphere of the meeting became very uncomfortable and Peter did wonder if he’d better drop the idea before murder was done.

‘If … If … we had a go at raising the funds like you did so wonderfully when you raised all that money for my New Hope Mission, we could manage it, but it would be a herculean task, believe me. Would anyone be in favour of raising the money ourselves?’

About one third of the meeting put up their hands, but many were very tentative.

‘It’s the ideas that’s the trouble, isn’t it? I mean, the WI were inspirational that time, truly inspirational they were, and it was all such fun. I don’t suppose …’ said a person from Little Derehams, who ought to have had more sense.

Sheila Bissett, speaking as the newly installed president of the WI yet again, shook her head. ‘Absolutely not. I’m sorry. It all got too much.’

‘But Sheila, you were excellent at it, with your clipboard and all that.’

‘I cannot possibly agree to it, not for myself, nor for the committee. Sorry. That’s my final word and I shall resign if there is any more pressure brought to bear on us. It’s not fair. We, as a committee,
are not taking it on.’
Sheila quickly sat down, trembling with shock at how adamant she’d been. She whispered to Ron, ‘We’re not, you know. Definitely not, and don’t let them persuade me.’

Ron took her hand in his and gripped it tightly. ‘Absolutely not. I agree.’

Peter suggested that he got someone from a London auction house to value the silver and then hold another meeting. That, he found out too late, was the very last thing that should have been suggested.

‘I disagree. Forget it.’

‘So do I.’

‘And me. If it’s pots of money we’ll get tempted and it’s not right. I won’t vote for it.’

Gilbert Johns stood up. ‘Neither will I. It would be sacrilege
to do any such thing as sell it. In my job I see far too much of this country’s heritage being destroyed, adapted, moved, built over, all for some pathetic reason or another. Some council that makes hasty decisions in a moment of weakness, some idiot industrialist who wants to build a block of offices right on top of ancient artefacts to create more jobs, when all the time it’s our heritage, our
children’s
heritage and our
grandchildren’s
heritage that is being defiled. It’s not right. And I, for one, shall vote against selling them, no matter how much they are valued at. People like us have to stand firm or, in fifty years’ time, England will be full of appalling office blocks and dozens of spaghetti junctions and all that beauty that is
ours
will be lost. Sorry, Peter.’

‘Hear! Hear!’ someone shouted.

‘Absolutely right,’ someone else said.

‘I vote we don’t sell it.’ This was shouted out very loudly by Willie.

‘This is all very well, but what if the church falls down. Then what?’ said someone from Little Derehams whose grandson was being christened next Sunday, so consequently was full of self-interest.

‘And what about my great-grandad, buried in the churchyard? What about him, eh?’ No one had an answer to that.

‘It’s stood for nearly eight centuries or so, why should it suddenly begin falling down? Eh? I ask you?’ This from Zack, feeling deeply caught up in this passionate discourse.