Pictures of Perfection

CHAPTER ONE

Wield stood with a cup of tea in his hand and looked out of the window. Spring sunshine on a cottage garden. Colour here a-plenty already with the tulips and daffs and a golden torrent of forsythia, and the promise of so much more to come — lilies and delphiniums, roses and red hot pokers. It needed a bit of work now the growing season was under way, but by the start of May it would be a picture. And the whole village too. A picture.

Wield was no sentimentalist. If this business required the full police circus — police transports crowding the High Street, an army of bobbies beating across the moors, the village hall turned into an incident room, Post Office vans laying extra lines, helicopters quartering the skies, diggers and divers disturbing badgers and fish in their search for what no one wanted to find, house to house inquiries, the media mob, the bar of the Morris loud with urban oaths, the floor of the Wayside Café muddied with wallies’ wellies — if that’s what it took to find out what had become of Harold Bendish, so be it.

On the other hand, to do that to a place like this if it wasn’t necessary was so much tactical bombing; no permanent physical damage of course, but places could be traumatized as well as people.

He rinsed his cup and then with great care washed Digweed’s glasses too. They were probably worth a fortune and breaking them would be ill return for what was probably the man’s one good deed of the year.

No, that was unfair. Digweed was obviously well thought of locally and willing to spend time and energy on the common weal. Last night he had called a truce. Wield was happy to let peace break out in its train. He began to whistle ‘The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring, tra-la’ as he dried the glasses.

Behind him someone coughed and he turned to see Filmer viewing this domestic scene with a lip-curl that prompted him to ask frivolously, ‘Solved the Great Post Office Mystery, yet, Terry?’

‘Funny,’ growled Filmer. ‘One thing for sure, he won’t be flying down to Rio on the proceeds.’

‘Or she,’ said Wield. ‘Mustn’t be sexist. What’s the damage?’

‘A cardigan Mrs Stacey got from a catalogue but it didn’t fit, a couple of Mr Digweed’s mail order books, and a herb pudding.’

‘A what?’

‘Mrs Hogbin’s herb pudding. It’s famous. Whenever she makes one, she sends a slice to her nephew in Wimbledon. Those were the packets so far as the Wylmots can recall. Some letters too, they think. I’ve checked with the packet senders. The cardigan cost twenty pounds, the books are worth about fifty, and the pudding about seven and six.’

‘Seven and six?’

‘They still count in old money among themselves round here,’ said Filmer.

‘So. Any ideas?’

‘Incomers,’ said Filmer with a countryman’s certainty.

‘Oh aye? Up the motorway from the big city, hit the target, and off, all for some books and a herb pudding?’ mocked Wield.

‘You got any better ideas? Going to run around with this like Prince Charming after Cinderella, perhaps?’

He produced an evidence bag containing the sole cast Wield had found and tossed it on to the table with such force the cast broke in two.

‘Careful,’ remonstrated Wield, carefully picking up the bag. Broken, the cast showed even more clearly what it consisted of. Sand, earth, cement, gravel … It occurred to him he knew exactly where he could find such a combination underfoot. Before he could share his revelation, Filmer said, ‘Fat-arse and fancypants still stinking in their pits, are they? When are they going to start taking young Bendish’s disappearance seriously?’

‘Oh, soon,’ said Wield vaguely. Filmer’s genuine concern about his missing lad was touching, but that didn’t make his griping any less irritating. ‘You hold the fort here, will you, Terry, I’ve just got to pop up to Old Hall.’

He made his way into the High Street and turned up the hill past the War Memorial. As he entered the churchyard he glimpsed a figure moving rapidly between the tombstones before vanishing through the arch into Green Alley. He couldn’t be certain but it looked like Franny Harding, clutching her ’cello case. She had been coming from the direction of the vicarage and on impulse he went to the arch leading into the vicarage garden and peered through.

In the morning dew a single line of small footprints led from the french window across the lawn. None went the other way, which meant either she’d gone into the vicarage via the drive up past Corpse Cottage, or she’d been there all night. Giving encores?

He caught a movement behind a bedroom window and, ashamed, he turned away and hurried into Green Alley.

So deep immersed in thought was he that he almost walked through the little glade without noticing. Then he did a classic double take. The faun’s statue was back.

Odder still, as he looked at it, its head fell off.

And oddest of all, it spoke.

‘I didn’t break it!’

He advanced and peered over the marble bench. Crouched behind it was little Madge Hogbin.

‘Hello, luv,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?’

‘Don’t go to school on Reckoning Day,’ she said.

‘That’s nice. Did you see who brought the statue back?’

She shook her head violently and repeated, ‘I didn’t break it.’

‘Didn’t think you did,’ he said, picking up the head and wedging it into place. ‘Did you see it with a hat on the other day?’

‘Yes.’

‘And who put it there? Mr Bendish, was it? Harry?’

‘No.’

‘No? Who then?’

‘The other one.’

‘The other one what?’

‘The other policeman, silly!’

‘The other policeman? There were two policemen? And what were they doing?’

She put her fist to her mouth and giggled bubblily.

‘I’m sorry, luv. I didn’t hear you. What were they doing?’

The fist came out.

‘Kissing!’ she shouted. Then she was away through the bushes, trailing laughter behind her.

Wield resumed his walk and his musings. This time they were almost fatal, for he stepped off the path on to the drive without slowing down and had to step back extremely quickly as a battered yellow VW Beetle raced by, heading for the main gate. He just had time to glimpse Fran Harding’s diminutive figure crouching at the wheel, and leaning against the passenger seat her ’cello case.

Behind her she had left a scene of frantic activity with half a dozen workmen cleaning up the mess left by their renovation of the stable block. This display of energy was explained by the supervisory presence of Girlie, pipe at full steam, standing on the entrance steps and occasionally issuing a fumarolic exhortation to greater effort.

As Wield went slowly towards her, studying the ground in the hope of spotting a matching print to confirm his theory about the Post Office cast, Guy the Heir came striding across the garden to join his cousin on the steps. They exchanged what didn’t seem like very cousinly words, then he headed away towards the Land Rover parked round the side of the house.

Wield went up the steps and joined Girlie.

‘Young Fran seemed in a hurry,’ he said.

‘Not another near miss, I hope! Don’t know what’s got into that girl. She’d better be in just as much of a hurry to get back here. It’s the Squire’s Reckoning today and I need all hands to man the pumps.’

‘At least you’ve got the weather for it,’ said Wield.

‘Sun always shines on Reckoning Day,’ said Girlie. ‘Anything I can do for you, Sergeant, as long as it doesn’t involve taking my eye off these layabouts?’

But Wield was not listening. Rapt as Crusoe on that fatal Friday, he was looking down at a damp print on the age-smoothed granite which in pattern and dimension looked a precise match for the Post Office cast.

He looked at Girlie’s feet. They seemed the right size but she was wearing a pair of green wellies, not trainers, and besides there was no reason for her feet to be damp.

He heard the roar of the Land Rover’s engine bursting into life and the vehicle came slowly towards them. Wield raised his hand in an effort to signal it to stop, but Guy the Heir, either ignoring or mistaking the gesture, responded by raising his hand to his grey forage cap in mock salute.

The gesture confirmed what Wield had deduced. The flowers that bloomed in the spring tra-la did after all have something to do with this case, for in the crease of the cap at the point where Guy’s fingers mockingly touched it was tucked a drooping, fading narcissus.