Winter Wishes (14 page)

“Maybe they want to remain anonymous?”

“That’s fair enough, but I don’t understand why they’d need to do it this way. The collection is anonymous.”

“You’d still know who’s been in the service though. Giving the money this way means that our mystery benefactor can make sure nobody’s able to guess their identity.” Richard pushed the paperwork back across the table.

“That’s a good thing isn’t it?” Jules folded the pages up and pushed them into her bag. “They must mean well.”

“They’re paying money into the church account, so I’m sure they have wonderful intentions,” Richard said slowly. “However, my granny used to say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Jules stared at him. “That doesn’t sound good, Richard. I take it there’s a problem with this?”

He sighed. “Well, I’m still new to all this, of course, but I’m afraid there could be. This kind of thing looks very fishy. I’m wondering if it might cause problems for St Wenn’s further down the line – questions about money laundering and so on, I mean.”

Jules felt cold all over. “Money laundering? Richard, tell me you
are
joking? The bishop will have a fit!”

But the doctor was deadly serious. “Jules, we have no idea where that cash is coming from. Yes, it could be a genuine person who wants to give to the church and not have any fuss made, but presumably we have a duty to know where those funds are coming from. What if it triggers some sort of investigation by an authority?”

Jules felt sick. An investigation was the last thing she needed. The bishop was due to visit again in a month or so and, although she’d worked hard to increase the activity of the church, she knew that the future of St Wenn’s was far from secure. Would someone’s misplaced kindness end up being the reason for closure that she feared the Church of England had been looking for?

“What can I do?” she asked.

“There’s only one thing you can do,” Richard said. “You need to find out who our mystery benefactor is, and as soon as possible too. This all needs to be above board and legitimate, Jules, or I’m afraid we really could have a major problem on our hands.”

Jules nodded – although, short of staking out every bank in Cornwall, she had no idea how she could find out who the donor was. As she left Richard to his afternoon surgery and meandered back through the village, Jules wondered whether this could be the same person who’d bought her lunch the other day. Might St Wenn’s benefactor be the very same person as Caspar Owen’s “Polwenna Bay Angel”? It was all a mystery and one that she wasn’t sure how to solve. She wished she could ask Danny – he was always a brilliant sounding board – but she hadn’t seen her friend for days. He wasn’t walking on the cliffs or drinking coffee in the harbour tearoom. He’d missed yesterday’s PCC meeting and Alice said he’d not spent a night at Seaspray since Tara had returned five days ago. No matter where Jules went in case she accidentally bumped into him, Danny just wasn’t there. Her friend seemed to have vanished into the drifting sea mists.

Or else, and this was an unbearable thought, he was avoiding her.

Outside the warm fug of the surgery the late afternoon was bitterly cold. As she walked, Jules pulled up the hood on her coat and dug her hands deep down into her pockets. The streets were quiet and even the seagulls had retreated to the cliffs, leaving the rooks caw-cawing in the skeletal trees above the village. The tang of woodsmoke laced the air and Jules’s breath rose in little clouds. Lost in thought, she walked past the village shop, skirted the green and crossed the narrow bridge before turning towards the harbour. The boats were all out and the quay was deserted for once, apart from a doughty pair of walkers braving the cold to stride across the cliff path. Most likely they’d soon be diving into the pub to warm up.

“Afternoon, Vicar!” Big Eddie Penhalligan called over from the fish market, where he’d just finished loading a fork-lift truck with old pallets and the splintered remains of ancient furniture. He was up in the driver’s seat now, about to set off somewhere with his cargo. “Have you come to help?”

“Help?”

“With the bonfire?” Eddie jerked his bobble-hatted head in the direction of the beach. “Everyone’s down there dumping anything they don’t want and gathering up driftwood. I’m going to chuck this lot down onto the beach, if you care to give a hand?”

Of course, today was November the fifth, Guy Fawkes Night. The village was quiet because everybody was down on the beach building the bonfire and getting ready for the fireworks display. Jules thought about the spreadsheets nagging at her from the depths of her bag. The idea of tossing them onto the bonfire was incredibly tempting.

“It should be bloody good tonight,” Eddie hollered as the fork-lift spluttered into life and whizzed him along the narrow quayside. “One of the best nights of the year, Rev!”

Jules followed, breaking into a jog to keep up. She remembered now that Ashley had donated a huge lump sum of money towards the fireworks display and was allowing it to be set up in the grounds of his home, Mariners’ View. Big Rog had done a fireworks course and had supposedly become the village expert. By the time Jules was helping Eddie to lob sections of pallets and broken chairs down onto the beach below, he’d also filled her in about last year’s event. Apparently, several mothers had fallen out with Jules’s predecessor over the results of the Best Guy Competition.

“Don’t look so worried,” Eddie said, his huge ham hands making light work of tossing a table top onto the wet sand below. “We’ve banned the competition this year. You’re safe.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Jules, who knew just how upset parents could become if they felt that their little darlings had been slighted. It was one of the reasons she was planning to let Tess Hamilton take charge of the nativity play – that, and Danny saying that he might have survived a war zone but he’d rather face actual military action than a group of Polwenna Bay mums on the warpath.

Oh Lord, no. Anything but that. Even manning the cake stall at the Christmas fayre was preferable.

“You could collect money or draw the raffle if you like,” Eddie said kindly, mistaking the look of horror on her face for disappointment. “With you being a vicar, we’d trust you not to cheat. Ashley’s donated a good chunk of cash towards the prizes as well as paying for the fireworks.”

Jules’s ears, pink with cold, pricked up. Was Ashley her mysterious benefactor? He was certainly rich enough and probably felt as though he owed God one. On the other hand, he was also a businessman and smart enough to know the headaches that unexpected lump sums appearing in a bank account would cause.

“And as you know, he’s letting us have the display at Mariners,” Eddie continued. “The Pollards are there now setting up.”

Jules hoped that the Pollards would do a better job of rigging a fireworks display than they did of fixing the vicarage roof, or the village would be in big trouble. Glancing up at the steep grounds of Mariners she saw several figures, swaddled against the cold wind and scuttling around the garden.

Having deposited the firewood, Eddie trundled off to fetch the next load. Brushing splinters and flakes of paint from her coat, Jules headed down the worn steps that led to the beach, where the pallets and old furniture they’d just hurled lay broken on the sand. No wonder the village was empty; all the locals were hard at work heaping junk and timber into an enormous mound at the bottom of the cliffs, a little way along from where Jules now stood. Already several Guys were sprawled at the foot of the pile, awaiting their gruesome fate.

“They look like I feel,” said a voice over her shoulder.

Jules turned, her heart racing, to see Danny standing beside her. He was wearing faded Levi’s tucked into battered country boots, and was swaddled in a thick Arran sweater that smelled faintly of damp sheep and salt; Jules recognised it as the same jumper that she’d often seen on one of the pegs in the Seaspray boot room.

Neither of them spoke; instead they simply gazed at one another. As always Jules was struck by the intensity of him, the incredible blue of his uninjured eye, the way it almost seemed to burn with a light of its own. His close-cropped hair was golden in the sunshine and his face was flushed from his exertions building the bonfire.

“Hey you,” he said, in a tender voice.

The fine hairs on Jules’s forearms rippled. “Hey,” was all she said back.

Still they stared at each other; the only sounds were their breathing and the hiss of the waves. Jules found that for once she didn’t know what to say. When did their friendship get so complicated?

About the time his wife came back, she supposed.

“Morgan looks like he’s having fun,” Jules remarked eventually.

The bonfire was growing bigger with every minute that passed. Morgan, easy to spot in a scarlet hat and gloves, was dragging an enormous branch across the wet sand with great concentration. His mother stood a small distance away, arms crossed tightly across her chest, watching him intently. Although Tara’s back was turned to them, her tension was evident in the rigid way she held herself; in spite of everything, Jules’s tender heart went out to her. Returning to a village where you’d been painted as the bad guy couldn’t be easy.

“Morgan’s thrilled to be home,” Danny agreed. He watched his son heave the branch onto the pile, determination written all over his serious little face, before racing away to collect another from the bottom of the beach steps. “And I’m delighted to have him here, you know that. I’ve really missed him.”

She nodded. “I know you have.”

“But I haven’t missed Tara, before you start drawing all the wrong conclusions,” Danny stated, turning his attention back to her. “Well? Go on, say it. I know you’re dying to.”

“Say what?”

“How am I? How do I feel about Tara coming back? Am I all right? Will I try again? Et cetera, et cetera. Take your pick. I’m ready for the inquisition. Isn’t that what the Church does?”

“Other team – and, anyway, I haven’t said any of that,” Jules said, stung. She thought she’d been doing a great job of
not
saying these things, even though she’d been longing to. Only lots of prayer and a gallon of willpower had prevented her from hammering on the door of Tremaine Marine’s office for the last few nights and demanding to be let in to see if Danny was all right.

“You’re thinking it though, admit it. Everyone is, but they don’t dare say so. I might have lost an arm and my devastatingly good looks but I haven’t lost my mind. It’s like a whole troupe of elephants are dancing through the village.”

“Goodness,” said Jules picturing this. “Sheila would have a fit. Imagine the mess. She’s bad enough if one of Mo’s horses craps in the village! Anyway, isn’t the saying supposed to be ‘elephant in the room’, not ‘elephants on the rampage in a Cornish fishing village’?”

Danny laughed. “Thank God you speak to me like I’m normal, because nobody else seems to. You’re the only one who ever does – and I’ve missed it.” He paused. “I’ve missed you, Jules. Can’t we just hang out like normal?”

Jules looked up at him and was taken aback to see a kind of hunger in his expression, as though he hadn’t seen her for weeks rather than just five days. It was exactly how she felt too.

Stamping out the hope that had flared at the words
I’ve missed you
, she said quickly, “Danny, you know how awkward this situation is for me. Polwenna’s a small village and people like to gossip. Things are tricky enough with the bishop and St Wenn’s future without any rumours about marriage-wrecking lady vicars being added to the mix.”

“My marriage was well and truly wrecked before you turned up,” Danny pointed out reasonably. “Anyway, it’s nobody’s business but ours.”

Jules shook her head. “That’s not the case, Dan. I’m the village vicar and I have to set a standard, otherwise how can I stand up in the pulpit and try to guide others? You’re not free and neither am I. Fact, as Morgan would say.”

“Excuse,” Danny shot back.

Jules decided to ignore that comment. “Anyway, you made it very clear what you thought the other night, so I haven’t been speculating about anything except maybe where you’ve been.”

He smiled. “So you have missed me a little bit then?”

“Of course – the church accounts are driving me mad and I could have done with some help. The vestry tap is dripping too, but apart from that, I’ve been far too busy to miss you, Danny Tremaine.”

“Ah yes, chatting up writers in the pub! Don’t think I don’t know all about that,” said Danny darkly. “It’s the talk of the village.”

Honestly, MI5 ought to recruit the Polwenna Bay busybodies, thought Jules in awe. No terrorist cells would stand a chance if Kelly from the pub and Sheila Keverne were on spy duty.

“I was not chatting Caspar up!” she protested.

“
Caspar
.” Danny rolled the name around on his tongue before pulling a face. “Yep, of course he’s a Caspar. That’s just the sort of stupid name a writer would have. Bet it isn’t really his name though. He’s probably an Alan or a Malcolm. What does he write? Vampire novels?”

She grinned at this. Actually, with his flowing locks and swirling black cloak Caspar did look a bit
Interview with the Vampire.

“Niche stuff, he said.”

“Niche stuff?” Dan’s brow crinkled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“No idea. I think he thought he was far too highbrow for the likes of me,” Jules laughed. “I can’t blame him though, because your sister left that dreadful
Blackwarren
novel with me and he caught us flicking through it.”

“The sexy one that somebody local has written? Vicar, I’m shocked at you. Especially after that sermon you just gave me about setting an example,” teased Danny. “Or are you the author? Are these your deepest fantasies immortalised in fiction?”

Jules flushed. “Don’t be ridiculous! I haven’t even dared read it. In fact, I gave it to Caspar.” Then, as an idea occurred to her, she asked, “I don’t suppose you know who the author is, do you?”

Danny tapped the side of his nose. “Information like that will cost you.”

“Do you know?” Jules was intrigued. Who was Polwenna’s answer to E L James?