The Bad Samaritan (10 page)

“Mrs Blundell, I wanted to ask something about Stanko—”

“Oh, I couldn't possibly discuss any of my staff with you, Mrs Sheffield.”

“I don't want to
discuss
him, Mrs Blundell. He's here in Leeds at the moment, and I can talk to him any time I want.”

There was a slight access of warmth, as she added: “I hope he's found a job.”

“Yes—he's working in a pizzeria.”

“Good. I always
liked
him greatly.”

“He says he was sacked because the police were clamping down on people working illegally.”

“I couldn't possibly comment on that.”

“Mrs Blundell, let's stop being cloak and dagger about this, shall we? I very much doubt if my telephone or your telephone is being tapped. I know and you know that Stanko has no work permit. Was this why you got rid of him?”

There was a brief silence, then some sign of cautious co-operation.

“When summer comes the police tend to get more interested, with all the hotels and guesthouses taking extra people on. I always make sure that all my staff have their papers in order during the peak months.”

“Meaning July and August. So that wasn't why you got rid of Stanko now, in May?” There was silence at the other end, and Rosemary plunged on. “Mrs Blundell, there is a nasty rumour being spread around the parish, very distressing to my husband and me, that Stanko was sacked after being seen coming out of my room. The implications are obvious. Is that true?”

This time, after a pause, Mrs Blundell replied.

“No, that's not true. I can assure you of that, Mrs Sheffield. As you know, there was quite a while between your visit and my suggesting to Stanko that he move on.”

“Exactly. But am I right in thinking that there was some kind of an incident?”

“Well . . . the fact is, Mrs Sheffield, that he
was
seen coming out of your room one evening—not late, as you will know, but—well, old people talk, and often they have rather nasty minds. When it came to me, this talk, I took no notice, because I knew you took an interest in him and his problems. But a lot of my guests are long-term in the winter months, and when the same people came to me with another incident of the same kind—”

“You mean Stanko coming out of a female guest's room?”

“Yes. Such a nice woman, really sweet, here for a few days with
her mother. So anyway I felt I didn't have a leg to stand on, when it happened a second time, particularly as I'd told him to be careful, so I asked him to move on.”

“You didn't talk to Mrs Meadowes about it?”

“No, I didn—” There was a shocked silence. “I did
not
mention any name, Mrs Sheffield.”

“No, Mrs Blundell, you didn't need to. I am
so
grateful to you for clearing the matter up.”

“So far as I know, Mrs Meadowes knows nothing about it—she and her mother left the next morning. I wouldn't want—”

“I shall be very careful, Mrs Blundell, very tactful. I can assure you of that. It goes with being a vicar's wife.”

So that was that. Thinking about it as she put the phone down she wondered whether her closing remark hadn't been misleading: she was tempted to be very tactless indeed. In fact she was tempted to spread the rumour, or rather the news, that Stanko had been sacked after he had been seen leaving Mrs Meadowes's bedroom. That would certainly signify an end to turning the other cheek, but it would be both satisfying and poetically just.

A moment's thought convinced her that such a move could spell disaster for Stanko. The more attention that was focussed on him, the more likely it would be that he would be forced to make another quick move. The only safe course for Stanko was to fade into the background, and the really unfortunate aspect of Selena Meadowes's gossip was that it prevented him doing that. But how much did she know about him? Did she know anything about his place of origin?

Rosemary decided to find out. She also determined to have a showdown with Selena.

She had just made this decision, and was turning her mind to the when and where, when Paul came in from evensong. He seemed in fine good humour.

“I made a suggestion about the party after the spring fete,” he said, rubbing his hands.

“Some genteel version of the rite of spring?” Rosemary enquired. “With me as sacrificial victim?”

“Ah yes—well, it did have something to do with that. All this silly talk—I know we haven't discussed it—”

“But we both know it's been going on.”

“Exactly. Well, I thought that for refreshments, as a change, instead of going to the Cosy Nook people to do quiche and salad as usual, we'd get a big order of pizzas from Pizza Pronto. Everybody likes them, and it will make a change.”

“
And
?”

“And I've organised with Signor Gabrielli that Stanko will bring them along to the parish hall. I'll be conspicuously friendly, I'll introduce him to people—as Silvio, of course—and
that
should stop people's tongues.”

Rosemary saw no option but to kiss her husband and seem to applaud his notion. It seemed the only possible reaction to his puppyish, pleased-with-himself air.

“Dear old unsuspicious Paul! When I
do
decide to have an affair your simple trust will be an invaluable asset.”

“You think it's a good idea?”

“Excellent. But don't imagine it will stop people's tongues. Nothing ever does that. But it may slow them down a bit.”

But privately she thought that they would be drawing attention to Stanko, just when they ought to be letting him fade from people's minds. Because she was determined that Selena Meadowes was going to withdraw her slanders, and well before the spring parish party.

R
osemary bearded Selena Meadowes next day in her bland semi off the Otley Road, distinguished only by looped satin curtains in the front room, which made the bay windows look like a toy stage at which Selena might be expected to appear as Maria von Trapp and sing of her favourite things.

Rosemary marched up to the front door and gave a single businesslike ring on the doorbell. When Selena opened it with a nervous smile Rosemary said, “Hello Selena. I want to have a talk about what you've been saying about me.”

Selena seemed inclined at first to bar her entrance, but Rosemary marched straight past her, down the hall and into the sitting room. Selena was alone in the house, luckily: her anonymous-looking husband was at work at his bank and her 2.5 children at school. She could be taken on in single combat.

Rosemary sat down in a fat armchair and had to resist the impulse to gesture to Selena to do likewise. Truth to tell, she was going to use to the full her seniority and her moral superiority. She felt rather like a headmistress preparing to give an almighty dressing-down to an unsatisfactory pupil.

“Right, Selena,” she began, “let's not beat about the bush. You and I both know the rumours about me that have been put around the parish.”

“Well, Rosemary, I have heard,” said Selena, in her littlest voice, “but of course I would be the
last
person to spread anything like that.”

“Don't pretend to be above gossip, Selena. Very few of us are that. And if not you, who else? You got the idea that I had been up to something in Scarborough—whether this was because you felt that someone who had lost her faith was bound to feel free of all restraint and go wild, or because you saw me happy and relaxed and put your own interpretation on it I can't guess. The last thing I'd care to do is go into your thought processes. But you went to Scarborough intending to find out any dirt that was going, and you succeeded. You heard—or by dint of questioning you learnt—that there had been comment on the fact that Silvio had been seen coming out of my room during the evening.”

“Well, I must say Rosemary I was
most
surprised—”

“You were delighted, Selena: be honest with yourself for once. It was exactly the sort of information you'd hoped for. And then, when Silvio turned up in Leeds some days later, and when he and I were seen together, you put two and two together and made the sort of fantastic number people do come up with when they try to work out that particular sum.”

Selena Meadowes dabbed at her eyes, which were dry.

“You're most unfair, Rosemary.”

“I am, on the contrary, unduly charitable, since I haven't gone into your motives. Now, I have no intention of defending myself or explaining myself to you, Selena. I would only ever do that to someone I respected. What I insist on is that you use the same energy and devotion you've been using in spreading this story to retracting it. I want you to tell everyone that you've made a terrible
mistake, that it was a result of a complete misunderstanding of what happened at Cliff View, and that you've been assured by the landlady that there's no question of Silvio having been sacked after being seen coming out of my room.”

“But Rosemary,” said Selena, a cunning look coming into her eyes, “that wouldn't be true, would it? I know the man—Silvio, is that his name?—
was
seen coming out of your room. And I haven't spoken to Mrs Blundell about it. You wouldn't want me to tell lies, would you?”

“Selena, after stretching the truth in the way you have in the last week or two, you can hardly jib at stretching it an inch or two further. You knew perfectly well, and ignored the fact, that there were weeks between my visit and Silvio being sacked. If you want to you can ring Mrs Blundell at Cliff View and find out the truth.”

“Oh, that would be rather awkward.”

“It would be
very
awkward for you. Because by chance you did hit on the truth about Silvio. He was asked to leave after being seen coming out of a guest's bedroom. Unfortunately the bedroom in question was yours, Selena.”

For the first time she showed real emotion.

“Rosemary! It wasn't!”

“Oh but it was. No doubt you'd been asking probing questions about him and me. I haven't discussed that with him, not wanting to embarrass him. But it's unfortunate for you, isn't it? Because if you do not start retracting your story—vigorously, comprehensively, totally—I shall tell people the truth about Silvio's dismissal with a great deal of pleasure.”

“You wouldn't!”

“You think not? I don't know how stable your marriage is, Selena. That wasn't something you thought about when you started spreading stories about me, and I won't greatly concern
myself with it if I have to start spreading stories about you. But I wonder how Derek would feel if all the parish was talking about his wife and an Italian waiter. A bit conventional, your Derek, isn't he? And a bit of a snob as well, I would guess. Think about it, Selena, and if you're wise you'll start spreading your retraction, and making it as convincing as you know how. Time to do a bit of grovelling, I think, Selena.”

So much for turning the other cheek, Rosemary thought, as she left the Meadoweses' bijou residence. Perhaps turning the other cheek needs to alternate at times with the threat of strongarm tactics to be fully effective. In any event she decided not to give Paul anything but a very generalised account of her conversation with Selena.

There was one other reason for being satisfied with the interview, and this she could share with Paul. It was obvious that Selena had never bothered to find out Stanko's name when she was at Scarborough, or even his nationality. One less thing to be explained, one more dangerous possibility avoided. The main thing was that talk should die down, and Stanko be allowed to fade into the background.

Die down it did, somewhat to her surprise. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she had always been liked and respected in the parish, both for herself and as the vicar's wife. The retraction, as it progressed (much more slowly, inevitably, than the gossip), was believed: people stopped avoiding her, snubbing her, pretending she wasn't there. Though the retraction lacked the specificity of the original gossip—inevitably, since Stanko and his situation had to be kept out of it—it was accepted by most of those who had heard it. Perhaps it was the deadly earnestness of Selena Meadowes that did the trick.

Rosemary took the renewed warmth as she had taken the quiet ostracism, but just once she did say something. She had walked
in the pale sunshine to meet Paul from St Saviour's and perhaps go with him to the Five Hundred Tavern when Timothy Armitage, emerging with the congregation, saw her waiting and made a point of coming over and greeting her.

“So good to see you, Rosemary. It's nice that you're not shunning us.”

Remembering his scurrying off to avoid having to talk to her she said, “I won't shun you if you don't shun me, Timothy.”

He looked down at the pavement.

“Oh, my dear, you noticed!”

“Of course I did. Gossip's so easy to believe, isn't it, even when you don't want to?”

“You make me feel very small, Rosemary. I feel that I've let you down.”

“No hard feelings.” To soften her words—because Timothy was really one of the nicest members of the congregation, and she had spoken as she had only because he was one of the ones who would understand—Rosemary added: “Remember me when Lassie has her litter. I think I'm ready for another dog.”

“You
have
been out of things, Rosemary. She had them last week. Come round and see them when they're a bit bigger.”

The shift in parish opinion gave Rosemary the hope that Stanko's appearance at the party after the spring fete would be unsensational. It couldn't be too much of a nonevent from her or from his point of view: talk about Stanko almost inevitably meant questions about Stanko. Or Silvio, as she tried to call him, even in her own mind.