A Village in Jeopardy (Turnham Malpas 16) (20 page)

‘I do believe I’ve found a buyer. A cash buyer for the estate, and I thought you should be the first to know, because of the Old Barn bookings.’

‘Ah! I thought perhaps that was it. A cash buyer! My word, what amazing luck.’

‘He and his board members are very keen, just what they’ve been looking for. Unfortunately they will be making use of the Old Barn, so won’t want you to carry on as you are. I had hoped to find someone who would let you do that very thing, but unfortunately they don’t. But I can’t turn down their offer in the circumstances.’

‘Of course not. I wouldn’t expect you to. May I inquire who they are and what they’ll be doing with the Old Barn? Just out of interest of course.’ Jimbo took another sip of his coffee and hoped his grave disappointment didn’t show. It was then he noticed how unlike his normal self Craddock Fitch appeared to be. God! The man looked completely drained.

‘They’re an entertainment company and will be holding events of all kinds in the Old Barn three nights a week: Thursday, Friday and Saturday. They haven’t a Sunday licence as yet but they are hoping to get one. I doubt they will, but there we are. It’s a heaven-sent opportunity for me.’

‘So someone will be living here.’ Jimbo spread his hands to indicate he meant the big house.

‘The owner will.’

‘And he is?’

‘Freedom Blade, whoever he might be. Obviously a made up name. I haven’t met him, just his agent’s been round and loves the place: just what they’ve been looking for.’ There was a smidgen of sadness in Craddock’s voice and Jimbo’s heart went out to him, but he had to be warned.

‘You do know what he’s about? Read about him in the press or seen him on TV? That he’s not quite . . .’

Craddock looked up listlessly as though he didn’t care a hoot how degenerate the man was so long as he solved his problem.

‘No. Does it matter?’

‘He’s into drugs, he’s an alcoholic, he abuses women, loud parties, you name it. He most certainly is not what this village needs or wants.’

‘Since when have they ever thought about me? Mmm? They’ve accepted the parties and the scholarships, the money I’ve given to the church, whatever I’ve offered and then laughed behind my back. I owe them nothing. Absolutely nothing.’ He picked up his morning post and sifted through it, ignoring Jimbo.

There had to be something he could hit back with, thought Jimbo. What was his soft spot? ‘Would you really want this magnificent house, which you love, to be abused by a man like him?’

Craddock looked as though he’d been stabbed clean through the heart. He put down his post and looked directly at Jimbo. ‘If you were in the financial position I find myself in, you wouldn’t care if it was the devil himself moving in so long as you were free of the responsibility. Every day it gets me deeper into debt. Now, off you go and let me get on with rescuing myself.’

But Jimbo didn’t go. ‘For God’s sake don’t do it, man, he’s a wrong ’un. A dreadful man, not fit to own a dog, let alone a house like this. Think of the village. Please.’

Craddock sat back in his chair, closing his eyes briefly as though trying to shut out the inevitable. ‘I’ve got to do it; he’s the only one who’s offered the money with any certainty. The only one. I can’t wait any longer. My situation is dire.’ He dismissed Jimbo with a tired wave of his hand.

‘Is there nothing else you could sell, like Glebe House, perhaps?’

‘A drop in the ocean that is, a drop in the ocean.’

Jimbo said, ‘I’m so sorry. I wish I could help, wish I could buy the whole estate outright but I can’t. Think twice about this Freedom Blade because within a year this beloved house of yours will be a wreck, believe me. None of us could bear that. I know it doesn’t belong to the village but it
feels
as though it does. Just a pity it had to be sold after the Second World War, then there’d have been a Templeton here and we’d all feel safe. Tradition and all that jazz, you know. Anytime you need someone to talk to, a sounding board, please feel free to ring me.’

Jimbo left Craddock sitting with his eyes closed again, head resting back as though the last ounce of his strength had been taken from him.

The news got round the village faster than the speed of light. Jimbo wasn’t to blame – the only person he told was Harriet when he took over the reins again on his return.

‘Not a word, darling. It may all fall through, you never know, so there’s no point in alarming the village unnecessarily. If a customer comes in, mum’s the word.’

‘But Freedom Blade! My God! That’s terrible. We’ll be invaded.’

‘Exactly, once the fans find out. Could be good for business though. Could we rig up a pizza oven and serve . . . or, I know, we could always . . .’ Jimbo’s business mind began exploring the different possibilities of making money.

‘Don’t you dare. The man is a beast, but we can’t stop Craddock selling it to him.’

‘He’s desperate and I mean
desperate
. . . I don’t want to profit by Old Fitch’s misfortune, but when it’s someone like Freedom Blade, there’s a limit. He’s foul, if you believe everything they say about him in the papers.’

But the subject was the very first to be discussed that night at the table in the bar with the old bench down the side. Willie got the drinks in for Sylvia, Dottie, Maggie, Vera, Don, Barry and Pat and when they’d all taken their first reviving sip conversation broke out.

‘So, Barry, reveal all. We’re all waiting,’ said Sylvia, who’d seen Freedom Blade on TV and thought that despite all the stories about him he really was a very appealing if misguided young man. Her mother would have described him as in need of mothering. ‘What does he look like in real life?’

Barry dashed her hopes immediately. ‘He’s not been to see the house; it was his agent or manager or someone. Quite by chance,’ he grinned, and they all acknowledged what he meant, ‘when he was looking round, I happened to be attending to a window at the front of the house that had jammed shut. Been meaning to do it for weeks and thought this morning was my moment.’

‘So what did you hear?’

‘Apparently . . .’ the saloon bar wasn’t all that big and Barry was well aware that half the patrons were paying him close attention, ‘it’s this Freedom Blade; he’s sent his manager to take a look and take lots of photos, which he did, and this Freedom fellow is wanting to make the house his permanent home and use the Old Barn for parties and regular events, three nights a week.’

Dottie drew in her breath sharply. ‘Surely not, not the Old Barn. Well, I’m not working for someone like him. Not likely.’

They were horrified by the prospect.

‘All those crazy fans turning up!’

‘The noise. The traffic. All-night parties.’

‘Surely we can stop him.’

Willie gathered all their comments into one succinct sentence. ‘This spells disaster. Village life as we know it will be gone. For ever.’

Willie said, ‘We’ve stopped Fitch’s antics before; maybe we could do it again.’

There was a short silence while they contemplated this statement and then Maggie said, ‘Remember the effigy of him we hung up.’

Sylvia added her penny’s worth. ‘The central heating needing a spare part from Germany that took weeks to get here. Thumping big lie that was, Barry.’

‘Don’t blame me, I only did what I was told. It all worked though, didn’t it? He didn’t sell the church silver he’d found, did he?’

‘We’ll have to protest again,’ Don suggested.

But Barry didn’t appear to be keen. ‘I see more of him than you do, being his maintenance man, and to be honest I feel sorry for ’im.’

Vera couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. ‘What’s there to feel sorry about then?’

‘He’s taking it very badly.’

‘Who wouldn’t, when his business has collapsed like it has? I don’t feel sorry for ’im, not one jot.’ Willie picked up his glass and relished the taste of Dicky’s home brew with delight.

‘I mean really badly. He loves that house and it’s killing him having to sell. He’s grabbed at the first buyer with the money to pay cash and who can blame him?’

‘Are you being sarcastic?’ Don asked.

‘No, I mean it; I feel sorry for him. He’s always been a fit-looking man, you know, no extra weight, but he’s lost weight and he looks something terrible. Kate’s out of her mind about him.’

‘But Freedom Blade! We all know from the telly what he’s like. Does Jimbo know all this?’

Barry nodded.

Maggie asked Dottie if the rector could do something about it. ‘Has he said anything?’

‘Not to me,’ Dottie replied, privately thinking she wouldn’t tell them if he had.

Discussion of the matter lasted most of the evening till they had to cheer themselves up with speculation about Johnny and Alice, but there were no conclusions drawn about either of them. She was pregnant. They lived in Alice and Marcus’s house mostly. Johnny was so well off he didn’t need to earn a living. The entire village was about to be taken over by Freedom Blade’s teenage fans and should they sell their houses before all hell was let loose on Turnham Malpas?

But the next day there was something else much more significant to think about.

Chapter 15

Poor old Sykes hadn’t come home all night. He was usually back home in the Rectory just before Dottie left at lunchtime, but she had to lock the door with him still wandering about.

She anxiously tut tutted for a while, stood outside and called his name, checked the church, and generally wandered about outside hoping to catch sight of him, but he was nowhere to be found. So Dottie left a note on Peter’s desk and had to leave.

He still hadn’t returned by bedtime and Beth began to worry.

‘But, Mum, where can he be? Do you think he’s been run over?’

‘He’ll probably come home during the night and one of us will have to go down to let him in. I expect he’s got locked in someone’s house by mistake. You know what he’s like.’

‘But if he was he’d bark like he does and they’d let him out. I mean, he’s missed his dinner and he loves his food.’

‘Considering what an independent dog he is he’s not going to go missing by mistake, now is he? Go to bed, darling, and don’t worry, he’ll turn up. You wait and see.’

‘I’ll go out with a torch right round the green and call him, see if I can hear him barking.’ Seeing Caroline was about to object she hurriedly grabbed the torch they always kept in the hall table drawer and left.

While Beth went round the green, in vain as it turned out, Caroline went out of the back door to call him and Peter went into church to check if he’d got locked in there, but all three drew a blank and had to go to bed hoping for the best.

There was no sign of him the whole of the next day. Peter did some posters about him being missing and put them up outside the church, in the village store and one nailed to a tree in the churchyard. Then he made smaller ones and took those to Little Derehams and to Penny Fawcett and nailed those to prominent trees by the bus stops.

Though Peter wasn’t all that fond of dogs he’d grown to value Sykes’s companionship since they’d taken him in. They’d enjoyed some happy afternoons when Peter was working in his study and Sykes curled up on the sofa asleep, tired by his morning perambulations, or when he reminded Peter it was time for their joint tea and biscuit break about half past three. In fact Peter had come to the conclusion that Sykes must have a private alarm clock, he was so accurate with his timings. Whether a saucer of hot tea with milk and sugar was good for a dog Peter didn’t know, but that was their secret, and he felt extraordinarily lonely when he took only one biscuit from the tin in the kitchen that afternoon.

Consternation consumed the whole of Turnham Malpas. They all remembered how Sykes had mysteriously appeared the afternoon of that massive pile-up on the bypass all those years ago and everyone had been convinced he was Jimmy’s dog reincarnated after his agonising death in the rabbit trap. So in their own way they all felt an attachment to Sykes and searched every nook and cranny in case he’d got shut in their shed or in the old stable where they kept their gardening tools in the winter.

When after two weeks he was still missing it was suggested that a memorial service for him might be held in the church. Or at the very least a word of prayer. After all, he’d belonged to the whole village, hadn’t he? Briefly Peter was tempted – it seemed such a good idea until common sense reasserted itself and he gently refused, still holding out hope that Sykes might show up.

There were quite a few people who were grievously hurt by his refusal, others who knew it wasn’t quite right to ask God’s blessing on a dog, and the upshot of it all was that those who wished could come to the Royal Oak next Saturday night and at nine p.m. precisely they’d all raise their glasses to Sykes.

Dicky and Georgie thought they might be a bit extra busy but never imagined for one moment that so many people would turn up. By eight forty-five it appeared the entire village was crammed shoulder to shoulder in the saloon bar and in the dining room serving food became next to impossible.

Grandmama Charter-Plackett asked to be the one to speak about Sykes – after all she had been one of his owners, so, as no one else volunteered, she was the one standing at the bar facing the crowd, glass in hand. Dicky announced her in his big megaphone voice and silence fell.