Whispers in the Village (15 page)

‘No, thanks.’ She’d try again when he came back. He was such a convincing liar. If there was a prize …

Paddy came back in with the morning paper in his hand, and settled down to read it.

‘You can’t fool me, Paddy, I know you’ve taken them.’

‘Why me? You’ve always got people calling, and you don’t like them in the study so they get in here. The temptation must be colossal if they’re short of a bob or two.’

‘Well, it certainly wasn’t Sir Ralph because you showed him into the study. In any case, he’s the epitomy of honesty.’

‘That’s because he speaks with a plum in his mouth and wears good clothes. People who’ve inherited money are never suspected of anything underhand, oh no! It’s poor sods like me who get it in the neck, well before anyone else. Be fair, Anna, you wouldn’t dream of asking him, now would you? So why ask me?’

There was a self-righteous, bleating tone in his voice now, which Anna called his ‘virtuous bleat’. But she mustn’t show such distrust of him. He was right, she’d suspected him first and foremost.

‘Please, Paddy, if it is you who’s stolen them, be honest with me. Where are they now?’

‘I’ve just said it isn’t me. How many different ways are there to say it? I didn’t pinch ’em.’ He picked up the remote control from the arm of the sofa and switched on the TV. It was a trivial quiz programme but he plainly intended watching it to avoid any more questions.

‘I’m sorry, but I sincerely believe it was you who took them and I want them back on these shelves by tomorrow night.’

He didn’t answer, so Anna said the same sentence even more loudly. He still didn’t answer.

‘
Paddy!
Answer me. Do you hear?’ Her leaping from her seat and grabbing the control was so sudden Paddy reacted far too late.

‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Give that to me.’ He reached up to grab the control back but Anna was too quick for him. She switched it off and then sat down in her chair with it hidden behind her. ‘Now, please, answer me. Where are they?’

Paddy was steaming with temper. He wanted the TV on and the TV was going to be on or he’d die in the attempt. He jumped up and tried to pull Anna out of her chair so he could reach the damn thing. But Anna was far tougher than she looked, and she refused to budge. He brought his arm back and prepared to hit her.

Anna said, ‘Don’t! Or I shall have the police here and tell them what’s happened.’

‘Ooops! She’s getting dangerous.’

‘One finger laid on me in anger and so help me I will call the police. You wouldn’t want that, would you, Paddy. Twelve months in prison? Think how you suffered before.’ His right arm was drawn back once more. ‘Out you go if you do, never to come back.’

‘Idle threats, my dear, idle threats.’ He sat back down, opened his newspaper and left her guarding a TV control he apparently could well manage without now.

‘It is you, no matter how vehemently you deny it, and like I said, if they’re not back on the shelves by tomorrow night I shall call the police. I don’t want to do that, because you’d lose your job, but do it I shall. They’re not mine, are they, so they’re doubly my responsibility.’

‘Damn ugly things, they are. She’d be glad to see the back of them.’

‘Only if
she
got the money and not you.’

‘I’m really insulted that you see fit to accuse me. Me! Who’s led such a hard life, and deserves all he can get. Me!’ His eyes opened wide and he sat there for all the world like a genuinely wrongly accused, affronted chap. If it hadn’t been such a serious matter, she would have laughed outright. He was an actor. That’s what. Atop-of-the-range actor.

‘You do not
deserve
all you can get by
stealing
, believe me. I shan’t say another word on the matter, but they’d better be there tomorrow night or else. I’m going to bed early tonight. Hot chocolate?’

‘No, thanks, that face of yours would turn the milk.’

Anna didn’t care for this new edge to Paddy’s voice. Suddenly he’d decided he was invincible. Well, he wasn’t. If necessary, she’d have him forcibly removed. The police would have to be called to achieve that but her heart shied away from calling them because it would mean the end of Paddy’s struggle, and hers, to achieve normality. Anna drank her hot chocolate alone in the kitchen, having tired of Paddy’s choice of programme. He loved to be in control of the TV. A small thing but it was getting to her. Like the thin edge of the wedge. The bedroom saga was another instance. Blast Paddy.

Next day Anna went into Culworth to attend a meeting in the Abbey. Afterwards she paid a visit to an unreliable jeweller in Abbeygate whom she knew. She scrutinized his window display then opened the door, but before she went in she looked up and saw the iron bracket, which, in the past, had held the sign of the three balls. He no longer professed to be a pawnbroker but in fact he was. She went in to find it dim and sinister, with shadowy corners, and curtains thick with dust. There was a brass bell on the counter to ring for assistance.

Two dings of the bell and from between the dark brown, floor-length curtains behind the counter came the owner, rubbing his hands, but not with the cold, for the shop was steamy with heat. ‘What can I do for you, Reverend? Stipend not stretching as far as it should this month?’

He stooped badly, his glasses held together with sticking plaster, a face which hadn’t seen a razor in years, and a pointed nose that, without much effort, would be capable of touching his chin. In between was a long, thin-lipped mouth.

‘Hello, Mervyn. Long time no see.’

‘Exactly. A brooch, wasn’t it? For your mother, in the shape of a flower made of pearls with a single diamond in the centre. You got it for a song. I was a mad fool to allow it.’

‘You’ve a long memory.’

‘I have. What is it today? I have some good gold necklaces, second-hand, but very good value.’

‘I’m not buying. I’m asking.’

His eyes became shifty and his hands were now ceaselessly rubbing each other.

‘You’ve had a man in during the last few days.’

‘I’ve had several.’

‘This one was wanting to sell you things. They were stolen, so I’ve come to take them back.’

Mervyn rubbed his chin. ‘Pawned them, did he?’

‘I don’t know. Sold them for a song, I’ve no doubt. Come on, Mervyn, that long memory of yours …’

He hummed and ha’d for a while, as though he were casting his mind back over the last few days. ‘What were they?’

‘Some china figures. Four in all.’

He raised a none-too-clean finger and stabbed the air. ‘Staffordshire, all genuine. Been left them by his granny.’

‘No such thing. Stolen from Turnham Malpas rectory.’

‘No! Oh, no. Not from Doctor Harris?’

Anna nodded. She’d got him looking distraught.

‘I heard she’d gone to Africa. So you’re the Reverend Harris’s locum, and a very charming one at that. Who’s he then?’

‘He’s someone I’m trying to get back on his feet.’

‘I see. She’s a lovely lady, is Doctor Harris. Comes in sometimes with them kids of hers. Beautiful manners, they have, full of questions. As for Doctor Harris, there’s no nicer lady this side of the Cul. She’s lovely, so genuine and thoughtful. I’m proud to call her my friend. She helped me no end when my dear Rachel died. Kindness itself, she was.’ He brought out a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes.

Breathless with dread, Anna asked, ‘Have you sold them? Please say no.’

‘You’re lucky. I’ve someone coming in today to look at them.’

Mervyn went in the back, shifting clouds of dust from the curtain as he swept through. He returned after a minute. She didn’t need to ask if they were the right ones, because they were carefully wrapped in the evening paper Paddy had been reading the night of the big argument; she recognized a headline.

Mervyn unwrapped them all and stood them up on the counter. ‘She’d be heartbroken if she knew, and I can’t have that.’ He stroked them with a sensitive finger.

‘Did you sell them to her?’

‘No, no. This kind of thing isn’t my line of business normally, too expensive.’ He blew some dust from the head of a child, and smiled.

Anna opened her bag and rooted in it for her purse. ‘How much did you give him for them?’

Mervyn, offended, said, ‘I don’t require any money. It wasn’t much and I’m glad to be of service to her. If she comes in when she gets back I shan’t say a word, and I hope you won’t either. There’s no need for her to know they’ve strayed.’ He tapped the side of his nose and winked.

Anna handed him her card. ‘I’m grateful for that. That’s my phone number. If he comes in again with anything, well, please hang on to whatever it is and give me a ring. I don’t expect he’ll try this on again, however, not after I’ve had a word with him tonight.’

Mervyn carefully rewrapped the figures, pausing to caress the head of the child as he did so. ‘Lovely stuff. Very precious.’ In a dim corner of the shop he found a carrier bag, placed the ornaments in it and handed it to Anna.

‘I feel uncomfortable about this. Won’t you let me pay you something for them? You must have given him money when he brought them in.’

Mervyn backed off. ‘Certainly not. It’s a privilege to be able to hand them back to her, safe and in one piece. Good day to you.’ There was a flurry of curtain and dust and Mervyn had disappeared.

When she got home, Anna placed the ornaments back in their place in the left-hand alcove and decided to photograph them all so she had a record of exactly what they were.

Then she went out and about with her parish duties and returned home to find messages on her answerphone and emails galore. So she spent a busy twenty minutes answering them all and then began on their evening meal. Paddy was home well before it was ready, due to the heavy rain.

Anna decided not to say a word about the figures, but to wait for his response, if there was one. They ate their meal in the kitchen amicably enough with Paddy entertaining her with tales of the gardens and Michelle’s activities.

‘I don’t care what you say about earning a living, you’re actually enjoying being up there, aren’t you?’ She eyed him over the rim of her glass. ‘Well, aren’t you?’

Paddy placed two more chips in his mouth before he answered. ‘If I have to work then that’s the best place to be. Stuck in a factory somewhere would be hell, with all the noise and all the people. That’s not for me.’

‘Good, I’m glad. Perhaps you could get qualifications.’

‘Like hell.’

‘OK then, just a thought.’ Then Anna couldn’t wait any longer. ‘By the way, you’ll be relieved to know I’ve got Caroline’s figures back.’

Paddy didn’t answer but she detected the shockwave that went through him.

‘It’s not to happen again. Do you hear me? Nothing, but nothing, is to disappear from this house, ever. I’m appalled. It’s only because I know the pawnshop owner in Culworth and he thinks the world of Caroline that I’ve got them back. Maybe I shan’t be as lucky another time. I’m furious, Paddy, absolutely furious. One step forward and two steps back. How can we make progress?’

‘You’re not my jailer. I’m a free agent.’

‘Not for much longer if you do that again. I mean it. All the hard work you’ve put in to drag yourself back to sanity and yet you allow yourself to steal.’

Paddy glared at her from across the table. ‘If I want to slide back down the slippery slope, it’s nothing to do with you. If I want to, I shall. See?’

‘I don’t expect gratitude, but I do expect you to give me the money you got for them.’

Paddy studied this monstrous idea. ‘Spent it. All gone.’

‘What on?’

‘None of your business.’

Anna realized she’d hit a brick wall so far as Paddy was concerned. She was up against a man with few morals. They glared at each other and it was Anna’s eyes that fell first.

They both heard the doorbell ring. Neither of them wanted to answer it, but in the end it was Anna who went.

Standing on her doorstep was Gilbert. She was in no mood for him tonight, but she couldn’t stop her heart from leaping nor the welcoming smile on her face.

‘Hello! Come in.’

‘So sorry, are you eating? It’s choir practice tonight, and I need to speak.’

‘Please don’t worry, I shall be glad for a distraction. Come in.’

She took him into the study because she knew Paddy would be wanting the TV on and another altercation with him tonight was more than she could take. In any case, she didn’t want Gilbert to know the state of play with her and Paddy.

Gilbert sank down into the squashy armchair, placed his folder on his knee and said, ‘I must apologize for being so abrupt last time we talked. Got a lot on at the moment, big dig, TV programme coming up and Louise needing all my support.’

‘I’ve heard, you must be pleased.’

‘Normally pregnancy makes no difference to her, but this time she isn’t well.’

‘I’m sorry. Isn’t there something they could do for her?’

‘Mainly sickness, you see, and she refuses to take anything for it. Thalidomide, you know. Got to be careful.’

‘Of course. What was it you wanted to see me about?’