A Village Deception (Turnham Malpas 15) (23 page)

Tamsin’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Thank you so much. We both of us sincerely appreciate …’ Then she cried and Paddy hugged her, then Caroline hugged her. Finally, she stopped crying and they fixed the date and time and Peter took down the details for reading the banns. Then the pair of them fled, hand in hand, back to Tamsin’s house and revived themselves with a gin and tonic, and then another, before Paddy left for home, only to find that Vince and Greta had been making plans too.

Vince sat Paddy down in the sitting room and said a little nervously, ‘Now, Paddy. Tamsin has no one to give her a hand getting things sorted, having no mother and father, so we wondered if Greta could help in some way. Not to tell her what to do, but to give her a hand with making lists of things to do and that. Especially with the reception after.’

‘Reception? I never gave it a thought. Should we have one?’

Greta stepped in almost before the words were out of his mouth. ‘Have one? Of course you must have one! We all want to enjoy you getting married.’

‘But Tamsin and me want a country wedding, nothing fancy, just happy and jolly and everyone enjoying themselves. Not big and posh.’

‘Of course not, you’re not those kind of people, are you?’ Vince embarrassed himself with this remark. ‘I didn’t mean you
weren’t good enough for a big posh wedding. Of course you are! I meant …’

‘I know you didn’t, Vince. Tamsin wants it lovely and comfortable and surrounded by friends.’

‘You know, Paddy, I wish you’d been able to say friends and
family.
I know you’ve not seen your family for years, but you should ask your mother, if no one else. You only get married once and she’s still your mother, whatever it was she allowed to happen between you and your Dad. Remember, Tamsin unfortunately can’t ask hers, but you
can.’

Paddy looked embarrassed. ‘Tamsin wants me to.’

‘In that case, write and ask her,’ said Vince, full of enthusiasm for the idea. ‘Send a photo of yourself and Tamsin and say you want her to come. Tamsin’s such a beauty your mother will be delighted for you. We could put her up, couldn’t we? No problem there. Put your address on the back of the envelope in case she’s moved. Then, if it comes back, you’ll know you’ve done your best.’ It wasn’t often Vince smiled out of kindness, at a bawdy joke maybe, not kindness, but now he did and it convinced Paddy he should write.

‘All right then, I will.’

‘Good lad. Greta’s got some nice writing paper so you could do it tonight and post it on your way to the garden tomorrow morning. It would be best to give her plenty of time to arrange things.’

So Paddy wrote that very night. It took him a long time, longer than it should have done because of the memories that flooded his mind and made his pen falter, but finally it was in the envelope and the stamp stuck on it. Now all he had to do was post it. Paddy lay in bed for a long time before he got to sleep, mulling over old memories, wondering about the rightness of marrying Tamsin and thinking about whether his mother would come and what he’d say to her. Perhaps he shouldn’t post it. Or maybe he should make one last attempt to heal the breach. After
all, it was his father to blame for making his young life hell, not his mother; all she’d ever done was attempt, admittedly unsuccessfully, to mitigate the horrors their father heaped on them.

So finally he fell asleep with a lovely picture of Tamsin in his head. She was standing by his favourite vine, touching a bunch of grapes with her long sensitive fingers and smiling at him because she loved him. That memory was Tamsin, the
real
Tamsin, without a doubt. What a lucky man he was.

Jimbo had learned from Tom that the procedure for banking the money had been changed while he was away sunning himself. At the time, it hadn’t registered because there was so much to do on his return and it had been such a shock when he found the takings were down so much. So there was a lot to catch up on, but one day when he was adding up the takings, an idea crept quietly into his mind and wouldn’t go away. What was it Tom had said about being incredibly busy? That was it! He’d said that Harry had to go to the store each morning, remove the takings from the safe, count up the money, the cheques and the credit card slips in Jimbo’s little office, then enter it on the banking slips and take it to the bank simply because Tom had no time to spare.

He couldn’t blame Tom. Realistically, he’d left him with far too much to do. The store was open for six days a week and there was no one to let him take a day off. There were the rounds to do, collecting the produce for the mail order business and for the store, keeping the shelves well stocked, ordering the stock and, on top of all that, being responsible for the post office too. Tom, being Tom, had not complained and had found the only possible way to lighten his load.

But it had meant that the one person Jimbo didn’t really know, the one person for whom he had no references and the one person who wasn’t supposed to actually handle the cash had been left to do it. Harry Dickinson! As soon as he said his name out loud Jimbo felt ashamed of himself. He was an OK chap.
Nothing wrong with him. Look how he’d been accepted so easily by everyone in the village. A good drinking companion, a good friend, a nice chap. Look how he’d taken on old Sykes, and Sykes definitely liked him.

Jimbo pulled himself up with a jerk. Had he lost his marbles? Fancy Jimbo, that long-time hot-shot in the City thinking that if a dog took to you you were a good bloke. He needed his brains examining. That was it. That blasted Harry Dickinson had stolen his money. The owner away, Tom under pressure and Harry seized his opportunity. But staying on after he’d done it? That took some style!

Jimbo leaped up, got out the till rolls for every day he and Harriet had been away, took out the appropriate bank statements from their file and sat down to a long session of comparing till rolls to money paid into the bank, matching cheques, though there weren’t many of those nowadays, and checking the credit card payments, and there were lots of those. This was what he hadn’t done in the rush of catching up on his return. So he painstakingly did it now.

Two hours later, he had found several discrepancies. Jimbo realised that Harry had removed the till rolls, presumably hoping that Jimbo wouldn’t find time to match them up to the daily cash payments into the bank.

He’d kill him! Stealing from Jimbo Charter-Plackett! It was bare-faced robbery! Jimbo rang Harriet at the Old Barn and told her what he’d discovered.

‘I don’t believe it! Harry? That can’t be right!’

‘Come to the store and see for yourself. Right away. I’m absolutely incensed!’

‘I don’t believe it! You must have got it wrong.’

‘See for yourself. Don’t say a word to anyone though, I don’t want him doing a runner.’

‘I’m coming.’

But when she saw the evidence with her own eyes, Harriet knew Jimbo was right.

They looked at one another in horror.

‘How do we tackle it?’

Harriet suggested speaking to Harry in front of witnesses.

‘Call in the Fraud Squad?’ said Jimbo.

‘If it was millions, yes, but not two thousand eight hundred and one pounds and forty-five pence.’

‘Get Sergeant Mac?’

‘That would be a start.’ Harriet ran her fingers through her hair, a sure sign she was upset. ‘But it’ll be round the village in an instant if Mac’s seen coming here. Harry’ll get the wind up and do a bunk.’

‘Get Mac to meet me at the Old Barn office. The two of us could then confront him?’

‘Wait till morning, it’ll give us time to think about what we should do without him getting an inkling. We’d look ridiculous if we’re wrong.’

‘Harriet! How can we be wrong? It’s there for all to see.’

‘Could Tom have done it?’

‘Tom? He wouldn’t. Believe me, he’s completely honest.’

‘You’re right. He’s an ex-policeman and he just wouldn’t, would he?’

‘No. We’ll keep it to ourselves and sleep on it. We’ll decide what to do tomorrow. If he doesn’t know we’re on to him, he won’t just disappear, will he? He’s got no reason to.’

‘I’ve got to get back to the kitchens. I won’t be late.’ Harriet hesitated at the door. ‘I’m so disappointed, he seems like such a nice man.’

‘It just goes to show.’

Harriet didn’t know what it showed but, when she got back to the Old Barn, she took it upon herself to go and see Harry.

He was busy as usual, typing in the data from the previous
day’s business. He looked up and smiled when she walked in. The lovely, welcoming smile they’d all come to like.

‘Hello, Harriet, how nice to see you.’

‘Nice to see you, too. I’ve been so busy since we got back that I thought I’d pop in and see how you were.’

‘That’s nice of you. Enjoyed your holiday?’

‘It seems light years ago since we got back. But yes, we did. It’s been a long time since we had a holiday together. I’ve been wondering, is Venetia back yet?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘She’s gone to see her mother, I understand.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is she ill?’

‘Her mother? Yes, she is.’

‘Is she getting better?’

‘Yes. Venetia says she is.’

‘Oh, good, you’ve heard from her then?’

‘She’s not much good at letter writing but yes I have. Another week, she says.’

‘Oh, good, Jeremy will be glad.’

‘He said that the other day. Nice chap.’

‘Indeed he is. Must press on. Bye!’

Totally confused now, Harriet retired to think about what Harry had said. Everyone who was anyone in the village knew for a fact that Harry had not heard from her, but now he was saying he had. But letter-writing in this day and age? Using her mobile, emails or texting were much more Venetia’s scene. And calling Jeremy a ‘nice chap’ when he, Harry Dickinson, was having it off with his wife? It didn’t add up. A deep, bottomless pit of distrust seemed to open up inside her. The man was a twister. He wouldn’t know the truth if he met it in the street. Jimbo was right, she was sure of it.

So where the blazes was Venetia? Had their passionate love affair ended in a flash? He hadn’t done away with her, had he?
Now she was being totally idiotic. But they all knew Venetia was a million miles away from being loyal. Had she told him it was all over and he’d finished her off? On the other hand, surely to goodness Jeremy would be panicking by now if he hadn’t heard from her? He’d be ringing the hospitals and reporting her disappearance to the police. Wouldn’t he? Had she gone to her mother’s as Jeremy said she had?

Sykes came trotting past, heading for Harry’s office, and it did occur to Harriet to wonder what secrets old Sykes had in his head. Did he have the answer? Because she certainly didn’t. Harriet tried to remember the sequence of events and what had happened first. Venetia had disappeared, Harry had gone away to that funeral, well, he said a funeral but was it really? She now didn’t believe a word he said, and she hated it when people she knew couldn’t be trusted to speak the truth. Well, she and Jimbo would talk it over tonight when they’d had a chance to absorb the horror of it all, and tomorrow they would act.

Fran had no homework to do that night so she had decided to take a night off. She was sitting on the floor, her back resting against the sofa Harriet was sitting on and Jimbo was in his favourite leather chair watching TV with them.

Fran reminded the world at large that she was watching
Crimewatch
at nine and not to let her forget.

‘I think you’re going to be a policewoman, you always want to watch police programmes.’

‘Mum! I find them so intriguing, you know the way they go about investigating and things, the ghastly things they see. They must have very suspicious minds, never wholly accepting anyone at face value but wondering all the time what’s going on behind their pleasant exterior.’

To Harriet her comment seemed remarkably apt for today’s revelations. ‘Mmm. Right, we’ll watch it then.’

So they did.

Harriet had made a drink for the three of them before
Crime-watch
began and she also provided some delicious biscuits she’d made during the day in the Old Barn kitchens, having brought home the misshapen ones she had no use for.

‘These are lovely, Mum, all coconutty and tasty. I’ll have another one, please.’

So the three of them sat companionably together, sharing out the biscuits and enjoying their drinks. Jimbo was more occupied with the criminal he employed though rather than those of the nation at large.

There’d been a bank robbery and the perpetrators had been caught on CCTV. For one appalling moment Harriet thought one of them was … but it couldn’t be. She was becoming completely obssessed, she really was. It was that tall, upright army-type stance she thought she recognised. They showed the robbers’ faces again, all four of them, and there he was, half profile, half full face. Harriet shrieked, ‘It is him, isn’t it?’ Jimbo leaped out of his chair, stunned into silence. Fran demanded, ‘What are you talking about?’

‘It can’t be possible. We must be wrong. It can’t be him.’

‘It is! It’s him! There, look! Look again!’

‘My God, it is!’

‘Is it though? I mean … It can’t be … but I’m sure it is.’