Feted to Die: An Inspector Constable Murder Mystery Read online

  FÊTED TO DIE

  An Inspector Constable murder mystery

  Roger Keevil

  Copyright © 2012 Roger Keevil

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,

  or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents

  Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in

  any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the

  publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with

  the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries

  concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset in 11pt Adobe Garamond Pro by Troubador Publishing Ltd, Leicester, UK

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  To Christopher, my inspiration

  “So great a cloud of witnesses”

  ‘Fêted To Die’ is a work of fiction and wholly the product of the imagination of the author. All persons, events, locations and organisations are entirely fictitious, and are not intended to resemble in any way any actual persons living or dead, events, locations or organisations. Any such resemblance is entirely coincidental,

  and is wholly in the mind of the reader.

  As if you didn’t know.

  Chapter 1

  “Dammett Hall.”

  “Who is it, darling?” floated a voice from the stairs.

  “No, this is Seymour Cummings.” A pause. “Hold on … Sandra, it’s Gideon Porter for you.”

  “On my way.” Lady Lawdown swept into the drawing room. “Honestly, it isn’t as if I didn’t have enough to do today.” She took the proffered handset. “Yes, Gideon, what can I do for you? … Yes, the contractors finished putting it up yesterday evening, so it’s all ready for you to bring everything up to the Hall tomorrow. … Of course I have the licence here. My friends on the bench aren’t likely to refuse a fellow J.P., are they? Now for goodness sake, stop fussing, Gideon. Just put your beer barrels on your little lorry, and we’ll see you in the morning. Yes … goodbye.”

  “What was that all about?”

  “Oh, Seymour, with all your talents, don’t tell me you can’t guess.”

  “I shall treat that remark with the contempt it deserves.”

  “Sorry, darling, but I couldn’t resist it. No, Gideon was flapping about the beer tent. I honestly have no idea why I put myself through this every year. It’s wearing me to an absolute frazzle.”

  Lady Lawdown’s appearance belied her words. A tall elegant woman in her fifties, with immaculate pale blonde hair and a perfect complexion enhanced with the subtlest make-up, long slim hands with beautifully manicured nails, and wearing a silk summer dress in a bold poppy print, she had the air of a duchess who expected royalty to drop in for tea at any moment, and who was not remotely fussed at the prospect.

  Seymour Cummings laughed. “Sandra, you’re a terrible liar and you know it. You absolutely love the annual fete – it gives you the perfect chance to queen it over the entire county, especially since Peter died. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if that isn’t why you married him in the first place.”

  “Seymour, that’s a horrid thing to say,” retorted Lady Lawdown. “I swear you make these things up just to annoy me. I’ve a good mind to phone your editor and tell him that you’re a complete fraud, and that you invent all those things you put in your column.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, Sandra, I was only joking.” Seymour sounded quite rattled. “Please don’t do anything like that …”

  “Mummy, where are you?” came a voice from the hall.

  “In here, darling.”

  Nobody seeing Laura Biding and Lady Lawdown together could doubt that they were mother and daughter. Mid-twenties, slightly shorter than her mother but with the same blonde colouring, Laura wore riding boots, jeans, and a t-shirt as if she belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine. On which, on one memorable occasion, she had appeared, as one of the featured subjects of a lead article about Daughters of the Aristocracy.

  “I just wanted to let you know that Amelia Cook has arrived, Mummy. She’s dropping some things off for tomorrow. I’m just going to unlock the kitchen door so she can bring all her food and equipment straight through. Now, is there anything else you need me to do?”

  “Darling, you’re an absolute treasure, isn’t she, Seymour? I have no idea how on earth I’d manage if it weren’t for you. She’s done all the posters, and she’s persuaded the Vicar to open the fete, and she’s arranged all the attractions. Go on, darling – tell Seymour what you’ve organised.”

  Laura looked faintly embarrassed. “Honestly, Mummy, it really isn’t anything special – mostly just the usual things, like the tombola and the white elephant stall and the children’s races. Oh, and we’ve got Splat the Rat this year.”

  “Splat the Rat?” Seymour sounded baffled. “What on earth is that?”

  “Oh, that one’s great fun,” explained Laura. “You have a length of drainpipe sloping down at an angle, and then the player waits at the bottom with an old cricket bat, and then you make a sort of big sausage out of rags and soak it in beer – that’s the Rat – and you put it in the top of the pipe and the player tries to splat it as it comes out at the bottom.”

  “Hmm, I really must have a go at that,” replied Seymour, not sounding totally convinced. “And speaking of rats, I dare say you’ve got Horace Cope coming yet again to put his two-pennyworth in.”

  “Oh please, Seymour, not again,” pleaded Lady Lawdown.

  Laura sat down next to Seymour on the sofa. “Now Seymour, please don’t be horrid to Uncle Horace. You know he’s always done the fortune-telling, ever since I can remember. It’s a village tradition. And anyway, it’s only a bit of harmless fun.”

  “The day Horace Cope becomes harmless is the day I give up the predicting business,” snorted Seymour, “and goodness only knows when that will be. I just wish somebody would splat this particular rat.”

  “This is all because you’re up against each other for the new TV show,” said Lady Lawdown, “but I’m sure you don’t really have anything to worry about. You’re so much better on television than Horace. So can you please try not to upset him, just this once?”

  “Yes, well, you don’t know the whole story,” replied Seymour.

  “How do you mean? What’s he done?”

  Seymour waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it, Sandra – it’s nothing really. Look, as a favour to you, I’ll try to be nice to him. Anyway, where are you putting him this year?”

  “Laura had a brilliant idea for that. We’ve put his booth in the Secret Garden – you know, that little walled garden off the West Terrace. It’s completely private so people can’t crowd round and eavesdrop, and there’s a gate in the wall which leads out into the Park, so we can keep it locked until the fete opens.”

  “And who is the old fool going to be this year?”

  “Oh, now that was my idea.” Lady Lawdown sounded q
uite pleased with herself. “He’s going to be “Swami Rami, Mystic Seer of the Future”. Isn’t that a hoot?”

  “Oh blast!” interjected Laura. “I haven’t taken his sign round to the Park. I must do that, or nobody will be able to find him.”

  “Take it out through the side door,” suggested Lady Lawdown. “No point in going all the way round. Do you want my gate key?”

  “No, I’ll take the one from the flower room.”

  “While you’re at it, darling, do go round and check that it’s all set up for Gideon at the beer tent. He phoned up just now, so I expect he’ll come rushing up from the pub, and you’ll probably have to hold his hand.”

  “Right, I’m off. And don’t worry about a thing, Mummy. Everything is under control, and we’re going to raise lots of lovely money.”

  “I do hope so, darling,” replied Lady Lawdown with a slightly gloomy air. “I do hope so.”

  Although the entire village had been preparing for the annual Dammett Worthy Garden Fete for weeks, the day before the fete always saw the most hectic activity. If anything in Dammett Worthy could ever be called hectic.

  Helen Highwater made her way from her cottage in Galley Alley towards the High Street for her usual morning coffee at the Copper Kettle Tearooms. Helen was an unremarkable-looking middle-aged woman with faded grey hair – to look at her, nobody would have suspected that she was one of Dammett Worthy’s more celebrated residents, and probably the richest woman in the county. As the author of moderately successful children’s books featuring badly-behaved field-mice having unexacting adventures on fairly dull farms, nobody could have been more surprised than Helen at the sudden and unexpected success of her story about a schoolgirl magician. But for some reason, “Carrie Otter and the Photographer’s Stain” had seized the imagination of a generation of children, and had led to a degree of fame, and a level of income, which had quite taken her breath away. The latest in the series, “Carrie Otter and the Half-Boiled Pants”, had even been nominated for both the Tomer Prize and the Brownbread Award, although not all the snootier critics approved of her populist style of writing, and some of the press had been downright dismissive. However, whenever anybody mentioned this to Helen, she gave her usual bright smile and shrugged off the comments. “Just wait until the last book comes out,” she would say. “You can all make up your minds then.” And the world did not have long to wait. The publicity machine for the launch of the final book in the series was in top gear for publication the following month.

  Helen passed the premises of the local funeral directors, Solomon Binding (Undertaking), and turned in through the door of the Copper Kettle, just in time to see Amelia Cook disappearing through into the kitchen in a blur of flowered apron.

  “Good morning, Amelia!” called Helen.

  “Oh, morning, Helen. Be with you in a second, dear. Just getting a batch of scones out. There! Now, coffee and a cake, is it? I made a lovely Devil’s Food Cake yesterday, and I gave the vicar a slice, and he said how nice it was, and then I told him what it was called, and the poor man nearly choked on it. So what do you think?”

  “That would be lovely, Amelia.”

  “Well, you sit down by the window, dear, and I’ll bring it over. Would you like the paper to look at? Oh, bother, I forgot – that dratted boy from the paper-shop missed me out this morning, and I haven’t had a second to go over and get it. I’ve got yesterday’s Evening Sin, if that’s any good to you. You can read Horace’s predictions for today. Oh, no, I forgot – you’re not a big fan, are you?”

  And in her usual flustered way which seemed completely at odds with her well-deserved reputation as the best cook for miles around, Amelia bustled about to bring Helen her order, and sat down in the chair opposite her.

  “Are you all set for tomorrow?” she asked. “Ready to meet more of your adoring public?”

  “Well, anything to help Sandra out a bit, I suppose,” replied Helen, “although it’s not really so much to sit at a table and sign books for an hour at a fiver a signature. But I do get nervous. Silly, isn’t it? But you’ll be up at the Hall as well, won’t you? Didn’t Sandra say you were doing the tea tent as usual?”

  “Oh, don’t remind me!” groaned Amelia. “Why on earth I say I’ll do it I don’t know. But there’ll be nobody in the village tomorrow afternoon because they’ll all be up at the fete, so I might as well close anyway. I can’t move in my pantry for cakes already, and I’ve only got half of them done. And I’ll have to finish everything at the last minute, or else things go stale. I wonder if I could get Mrs. Richards to help me after she’s finished the cleaning at the Hall in the morning? Oh, I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. But, as you say, it’s all for Sandra. You can never say no to her, can you? It’s the church roof this year, isn’t it? Well, must get on. Maids of Honour next!”

  And without waiting for a reply, Amelia darted back into the kitchen, leaving Helen to listen to the sound of rattling crockery as she gazed out of the window.

  At Dunham Chambers, the offices of Messrs. Hall, Knight and Allday (Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths) in Dammett Worthy High Street, Robin Allday was surveying the day’s post.

  Robin looked exactly what he was – a typical country solicitor. In his late forties, tall and lean, with horn-rimmed glasses and dark hair tending towards grey, he wore a slightly rumpled tweed suit and brown brogues as if born to the role. Among the usual heap of conveyancing documents, bills, and invitations to take out a selection of credit cards on advantageous terms, one item in particular appeared to hold his interest. He gazed at it for several minutes frowning, and then seemed to come to with a start, folded it and placed it in his jacket pocket, and with sudden resolution got to his feet.

  “I’m just going over the road for a minute, Judith,” he said to his secretary as he passed through the outer office. “I shan’t be long.”

  “Yes, Mr. Allday,” she replied in resigned tones. This was obviously nothing unusual.

  Across the High Street stood the Dammett Well Inn, a long low timber-framed building decorated with hanging baskets overflowing with brightly-coloured plants. According to legend, the Inn had served as the village pub ever since King Richard III had stopped there on his way to the Battle of Bosworth to have a loose horseshoe repaired at the then village smithy, and had taken a tankard of ale while waiting. In view of the outcome of the battle, the landlord had decided against naming the inn “The White Horse” after the king’s charger, so it had been given the name of a local spring whose legendary magical powers were greatly prized by local maidens. Or those who claimed to be.

  As Robin entered the lounge bar of the Dammett Well, he was greeted cheerfully by the landlord.

  “Hallo, Robin. How are things? Don’t usually see you in here this early. Usual, is it?”

  “Yes please, Gideon,” said Robin. He sighed.

  “Problems?”

  “No, not really. Just all the usual rubbish about property titles not being clear and where the boundary is for such-and-such a field and people talking about changing their wills …”

  “None of which you’re allowed to tell me about, and I wouldn’t understand a word if you did,” laughed Gideon. He was a round balding merry-looking man with spectacular mutton-chop whiskers and a ringing country burr, who gave the impression that he had taken over as landlord of the pub at some point in the Dickensian period and had somehow stuck in place. “Right, there’s your brandy. I shouldn’t fret too much about whatever-it-is if I were you, Robin. In my experience, there’s very few things worth worrying yourself into an early grave for. Things always seem to sort themselves out. Here, I’ve just had a thought.” He chuckled. “You could always go and get your fortune told up at the fete tomorrow. I suppose you’re going?”

  “I dare say,” answered Robin with a wan smile. “Sandra’s asked some of us up there for a drinks thing before it starts, so I expect I shall be there. Mind you, I’m not so sure about the fortune-t
elling business – it’s Horace Cope again, as always, and he already knows far too much about everyone in the village as it is. And no doubt Albert will be there if there are free drinks involved …”

  “Heads up!” murmured Gideon in an undertone. “And a fine good morning to you, Mr. Ross. How are you this lovely day?”

  “Very well, thank you, Gideon,” replied the newcomer. “I just thought I’d pop in to say hello, and I saw Robin come in just now, so I thought, well, why not a quick one as I’m passing?”

  “Why not indeed? So what can I get you?” enquired Gideon, with a wry sideways glance at Robin.

  “No, let me get this, Albert,” said Robin, opening his wallet. “G & T, isn’t it? There, Gideon, you’d better take for both of them out of that.”

  “Well, that’s extremely kind of you, Robin.” Albert Ross was a small nondescript man with faded sandy hair whose age could have been anything between fifty and sixty-five. His somewhat apologetic air was not improved by his habit of blinking at the world frequently and rapidly through thick round spectacles.

  “Your cousin all set up for tomorrow then, Albert?” asked Gideon.

  “Oh, Horace is always ready for anything,” replied Albert. “He is so organised, he puts me to shame. Mind you, he has to be, with everything he has on his plate. He’s just sent his latest book review off to The Sin on Sunday this morning, and when I came out he was starting to write the predictions for next week’s papers, and then of course there’s the new TV show, so when he gets that he’ll be even busier.”

  “Now I heard a bit about that,” said Gideon, “but I don’t know the whole story, and I’m bound to get people asking because they all think I know everything round here. So what’s it all about?”

  “Well,” said Albert, settling himself on a bar stool and taking a deep breath. “It’s a new programme which is going to be on Satellite 5 every week, and it’s called “Seeing Stars”. It’s a sort of magazine with celebrity guests telling their stories about supernatural experiences and how predictions came true for them and all that sort of thing, and they want to have as the presenter a really famous clairvoyant, who will also do his predictions for the coming week. And they’ve asked Horace if he would like to do it.”