‘Excuse me for butting in, but I couldn’t help overhearing,’ said Frank Shunter. Seated at an adjacent table, the conversation had piqued his interest. ‘Are you saying that there may be an unpublished Agnes Crabbe novel?’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Wilderspin. ‘Exciting, isn’t it?’
‘The evidence is quite circumstantial, I’m afraid,’ said Mrs Handibode sniffily. ‘The theory is based on conjecture and wishful thinking. You’d know all about it if you subscribed to my journal.’
‘But the diary entries . . .’ said Miss Wilderspin.
‘Diary entries?’ asked Shunter.
‘Agnes kept very detailed diaries and she often recorded ideas for her stories in them,’ explained Mrs Handibode. ‘And there are a number of plot devices and character studies in her 1934 diary that don’t correspond to any of her known books.’
‘Yes, and then, in an entry from July 1935 she left the cryptic note: “Loaned WITM to IG”,’ said Miss Wilderspin excitedly. ‘And her diary pages for July eighth to twelfth were torn out.’
‘And this has been interpreted by some people as meaning that she loaned a manuscript to someone to read,’ said Mrs Handibode. ‘Presumably Iris Gobbelin, her brother’s widow and closest friend, judging by the initials.’
‘Ah, the girl who Agnes Crabbe might have had a relationship with?’ asked Vic.
‘Absolute rot,’ said Mrs Handibode. ‘There is no evidence of any such relationship.’
‘But didn’t I read—’
‘What you read was a figment of Pamela Dallimore’s puerile imagination,’ sighed Mrs Handibode. ‘That stupid woman and her wretched so-called biography have done a great deal of harm to the serious study of Agnes Crabbe and her works. I could strangle her some days.’
‘IG could be Iris Gobbelin,’ said Miss Wilderspin, returning to the subject under discussion. ‘And WITM could stand for Wallowing in the Mire.’
‘You know, of course, that all of her book titles are based on biblical quotes?’ said Mrs Handibode.
‘Indeed,’ lied Shunter, who hadn’t noticed.
‘But there’s no persuasive evidence that WITM is even a book title,’ continued Mrs Handibode. ‘It might stand for . . . oh I don’t know . . . Williams’ Invigorating Tonic Medicine, for all we know.’
‘Interesting,’ said Shunter, twirling his moustache. ‘I’m sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Detective Sergea— Sorry. Old habits. Frank Shunter.’
‘You’re a policeman?’ said Miss Wilderspin.
‘Retired,’ said Shunter. ‘I moved to the village last year. This is my first Agnes Crabbe Festival.’
‘Agnes Crabbe Murder-Mystery Festival,’ corrected Mrs Handibode.
‘So, this possible new manuscript,’ said Shunter. ‘Will it be—’
The remainder of his sentence was lost behind the sound of a loud ‘Aha!’ as Brenda Tradescant and a small group of her supporters from the Millicent Cutter Appreciation Society entered the pub and marched purposefully towards Esme Handibode.
‘There you are!’ barked Tradescant. ‘I have a bone to pick with—’
She stopped suddenly and the two women stared at each other aghast. Quite by accident they had both chosen to wear lime green and, while the cut of each dress was slightly different from the other, the colour was identical. Miss Tradescant quickly regained her composure and thrust a tablet into her rival’s face.
‘Your dirty little secret is out, Esme,’ she said triumphantly, showing the tablet to Shunter and Miss Wilderspin. On the screen was the lurid cover of a book called Her Tender Wound by Simone Bedhead.
‘Pay her no heed,’ said Mrs Handibode. She turned to Miss Tradescant. ‘If you don’t mind, we were having a private conversation.’
‘Really? And during this conversation did you happen to mention what a massive hypocrite you are, Esme? Or should I call you Simone?’
‘Oh!’ said Miss Wilderspin.
‘That’s quite enough!’ snapped Mrs Handibode.
‘Enough? I’ve barely started,’ said Miss Tradescant. ‘Do you deny that you wrote this book?’
‘What? Yes, I most certainly do deny it!’
‘So it’s a complete coincidence that you had several Simone Bedhead books in your suitcase? Don’t pretend you didn’t, because I saw you try to hide them.’
‘I don’t deny it. As I said, I have them for research purposes and—’
‘And I suppose that it’s also a complete coincidence that Simone Bedhead, author of such literary gems as Love’s Moist Promise and Gushing with Passion is a perfect anagram of Esme Handibode?’
‘Oh!’ said Miss Wilderspin again.
‘Don’t listen to her ridiculous nonsense, Molly,’ said Mrs Handibode. ‘Of course it’s not a coincidence. It’s why I’ve been reading the books, you old fool. I’m looking for clues as to who the real writer is and why they’ve chosen to target me.’
‘What?’ said Miss Tradescant, caught off-guard.
‘As you say, it’s unlikely to be a coincidence. Someone is out to defame me.’
‘What rubbish! You wrote these books. Admit it.’
‘I will do no such thing. This is nothing but a clumsy attempt to undermine my authority. Probably by a member of some inferior rival society. It might even be one of your lot, for all I know.’
‘My lot?’ Miss Tradescant looked around her small coterie of followers and they all shook their heads vigorously in denial.
‘Or you yourself,’ said Mrs Handibode. ‘I wouldn’t put it past you for one minute. And if you are responsible, you should know that I have reported this nasty business to the police.’
‘You’re accusing me?’ snapped Miss Tradescant.
‘It’s the sort of crass muck you revel in. And this is precisely the kind of petty and pathetic form of attack I’d expect from someone like you. You’ve always been jealous of my standing in the Agnes Crabbe community.’
‘Don’t you dare try to turn this around on me! You are Simone Bedhead! Admit it!’
‘I admit no such thing. That is libel and I have a witness. He’s an ex-policeman too.’
‘Whoa now, ladies,’ said Shunter. ‘I’m sure we can sort this all out quite civilly if we just—’
‘You haven’t heard the last of this!’ said Miss Tradescant. ‘I am going to expose you to the world for the charlatan you are!’
And with that she stormed out of the pub.
Things had not gone to plan at the First Aid station. Mrs Gawkrodger had made a decent enough job of bandaging up Baxter Pole’s groin, despite her lack of dexterity, but had then dropped the unused end of the roll of bandage, which had bounced away across the floor, unravelling as it went.
‘I’ll just get a pair of scissors to cut off the excess,’ she said. ‘Someone might trip over it otherwise.’
Pole, who was feeling much better now that the painkillers had kicked in and the throbbing in his groin had subsided to a dull ache, grunted in reply. In the background, Mrs Gawkrodger clumsily clattered among the first aid boxes.
‘Ah, here we go,’ she said triumphantly as she walked back towards him and caught her leg on the very same length of bandage that she’d been concerned about as a tripping hazard. As she fell, losing her false teeth in the process, the bandage was pulled taut and tightened abruptly around her patient’s genitals. Pole yelled and leapt off the medical table, desperately tearing at the bandages that were strangling his manhood, while Mrs Gawkrodger, her hip quite broken and in a great deal of pain, gummily called for help and then passed out. The cadets crowded in on her, delighted to finally have a patient they weren’t too embarrassed to deal with.
Savidge woke up in a brightly lit room. He had no idea where he was or how he’d come to be wherever he was. He was in a bed with white sheets – that much he could see without lifting his head – and a plain white curtain enclosed him on three sides. The ceiling was composed of white tiles with a complex and seemingly random pattern of decorative holes punched into them and his bed was made of grey painted tubular metal. Above his head he could see a curious collection of wires, tubes, knobs and switches. He realised that he must be in a hospital of some kind, presumably Bowcester General. Did that mean he was ill? He became aware of a throbbing ache in his head and, reaching a hand up to touch it, he found it swathed in bandages. Whether the injury had happened by accident or been inflicted by someone, he had no idea. Everything was a blank. Through a gap in the curtain he could see a poster that explained the dangers of deep vein thrombosis and, just above it, a clock showed that it was nearly three o’clock. Was that a.m. or p.m.? How long had he been unconscious?
The curtain swished open and a female voice from somewhere near his feet said, ‘Hello there.’ Savidge attempted to lift his head off the pillow but it made his temples throb so painfully that he was forced to lie back down again.
‘Just lie still,’ said the voice. ‘You’ve had a nasty knock on the head. It’s a good job someone phoned for an ambulance as you were losing a lot of blood. Head wounds are like that. And you’d had a heavy nosebleed.’
Savidge squinted at the clock, suddenly aware of its loud ticking. Like a bomb. A time bomb. He attempted to lift his head again but the world began to darken all around him and the sudden image of a hundred predatory Miss Cutters closing in, their twisted claws reaching for his throat, popped into his mind. Fear washed over him like a wave as he lapsed into unconsciousness again.
As the clock of St Probyn’s struck the half hour after three, a buzz of excitement began to grow among the Agnes Crabbe fans who had started to gather outside the village hall. Some were looking distinctly the worse for wear, with torn dresses, dishevelled wigs and broken handbag straps, all evidence of the scuffle on the green. A few even had visible cuts and bruises. Shunter watched from the pub window and sighed.
‘Doors open at quarter to,’ he said, downing the dregs of yet another enjoyable but unintended pint. ‘I suppose I’d better get over there and join the queue if I want to get a seat.’
‘Have fun,’ said Vic.
Towards the front of the queue, Esme Handibode and Molly Wilderspin stood in stony silence. Several times, Miss Wilderspin had considered opening a conversation but had then thought better of it. Her friend had been monosyllabic since the confrontation in the pub, which was very uncharacteristic of her, and had been giving off clear and unmistakeable signals of wanting to be left alone. There was an intensity behind her taut face and expressionless gaze; not so much a powder keg about to explode as someone pondering exactly how much explosive to buy at the powder-keg shop in order to inflict the maximum possible carnage. And her mood surely hadn’t been improved by the discovery that Pamela Dallimore, the person she disapproved of more than anyone else in the world, was manning the door to the venue. Yet again the wretched woman had been given a major part to play in an Agnes Crabbe-related event: the revealing of possibly the most important news story in over a decade, if the hyperbole of the festival brochure was to be believed. Every so often, their eyes would meet by accident. There was nothing but hatred to be seen in either pair.
‘I should have known that fraud would wheedle herself into the limelight somehow,’ growled Mrs Handibode. ‘And she hasn’t even bothered to get the costume right. Where are her pearls? Miss Cutter would never go out without her pearls.’
‘Oh, Esme,’ said Miss Wilderspin. ‘I’ve been so worried about you. You’ve hardly said a word for ages! Not since . . . well, you know . . .’
‘I am livid, Molly, livid. You don’t believe Tradescant’s ridiculous accusations, do you?’
‘Of course not. I know that you didn’t write those books.’
‘Thank you. That means a great deal to me. As if I’d ever sink so low as to write that kind of smut.’
‘How long have you known about the anagram?’ asked Miss Wilderspin.
‘It was pointed out to me six weeks ago by one of my sub-scribers. And I’ve been trying to discover who this terrible Simone Bedhead is ever since. She has proven to be surprisingly elusive. Self-publishing may have given writers a great deal more freedom but it’s also given them anonymity. The owners of the websites that host her mucky stories have been of no help whatsoever. I ordered some physical printed copies of her beastly books in the hope that they might provide some clue. But they didn’t.’
‘And have you really told the police?’
‘I have. But there’s little they can do until I have some hard evidence. Unfortunately, an anagram of my name, as unlikely as it sounds, could genuinely be a coincidence. And I’ve received no threats or demands and my career has suffered no harm as the result of her, or his, actions. Until today, that is. That harridan Tradescant will tell everyone she knows, mark my words. She has a nasty streak running through her.’ Mrs Handibode began searching through her handbag.
‘I think it’s probably just a prank that’s gone a little too far,’ Miss Wilderspin said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘There may be no malice in it.’
‘You always see the best in people, Molly, and I commend you for it. But I’m sure you understand that I cannot let them get away scot-free,’ said Mrs Handibode, continuing to rummage in her bag. ‘This could undermine my authority as a serious scholar. Perhaps I should talk to Andrew Tremens? He’d understand my situation. Blast. How annoying.’
‘What’s annoying?
‘I can’t seem to find my—’
‘Doors open in nine minutes, ladies,’ shouted Pamela Dallimore suddenly, eliciting a chorus of excited noises from the assembled Millies.
‘How she has the gall to stand there masquerading as some kind of expert amazes me,’ said Mrs Handibode. ‘She’s a lazy, attention-seeking idiot.’
‘Shhh! She’ll hear you,’ said Miss Wilderspin.
‘So what if she does? I’ve said the same to her face. It’s obscene that she gets all the acclaim when all she did was write a very bad book. It makes my blood boil.’
‘She’s a disgrace,’ said another.
‘Stupid woman,’ said a third.
Molly Wilderspin looked towards Mrs Dallimore and it was quite obvious from the furious expression on her face that she had overheard the comments too.
‘Listen, I need to quickly go and do something before the talk starts,’ said Mrs Handibode. ‘Hold my place for me, Molly.’
‘Yes, of course, Esme.’
Mrs Handibode walked past the front of the queue and favoured Pamela Dallimore with a joyless smile before disappearing from sight down Handcock’s Alley, the narrow lane between the village hall and the library. Miss Wilderspin wondered where she was going and what was so urgent that she was willing to risk missing the start of the event.
‘Seven minutes, ladies,’ said Mrs Dallimore through gritted teeth.
‘Ooooooh!’ went the crowd.
‘And gents,’ said Shunter, quietly. He was, as far as he could see, one of only a handful of men to have joined the queue. Admittedly, most of the others were in drag, but there were at least two Dr Belfrage look-alikes. Although, looking again, he realised that one of them did have a suspiciously fulsome chest. Cross-dressing worked both ways, of course.
Several minutes passed by ponderously slowly. Miss Wilderspin looked anxiously around for Mrs Handibode but she was still nowhere in sight.
‘Hurry up, Esme, or you’ll miss it,’ she said to herself.
Suddenly, there was a screech of brakes. A white van emerged from Handcock’s Alley and skidded to a halt to avoid hitting a group of tipsy Millies tottering towards the rear of the queue. The driver, dressed as Mis
s Cutter but undoubtedly a man if his five o’clock shadow was anything to go by, glared out of the window and shook a gloved fist at the women he had narrowly avoided mowing down. The gaggle of inebriated Millies wobbled unsteadily towards the pavement cackling with laughter and waving apologies. The van then drove off at speed down the Sherrinford Road, tooting its horn to clear the way ahead.
‘Well, we nearly had a real homicide to investigate there, didn’t we, ladies?’ shouted a visibly shaken Mrs Dallimore. ‘But it won’t stop the countdown! Two minutes!’
‘Oooooh!’
Time seemed to stand still as people glanced excitedly at their watches and mobile phones. One particularly geriatric Milly fainted to the ground and had to be revived by her companions using their festival programmes as fans.
‘One minute!’
An intense ripple of expectation ran through the crowd as the final few seconds passed by. Pamela Dallimore counted them down.
‘Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six . . .’
‘Oh, where are you, Esme?’ said Molly Wilderspin, looking frantically around for her friend.
‘. . . Three. Two. One . . .’
As the church clock struck the quarter hour before four, Mrs Dallimore unlocked the double doors and threw them open. The crowd surged into the hall, and the screaming began.
Detective Inspector Brian Blount stared at his computer screen and tried to remember whether it was ‘stationary’ or ‘stationery’ that he had to type if he wanted to order some headed notepaper from police stores. The spellchecker offered no help at all. Just like him, it could spell both words correctly but it was annoyingly vague regarding their proper use. Blount had a similar blind spot for the words ‘affect’ and ‘effect’, and no matter how many times he learned the difference the information never seemed to stick. Resignedly, he looked up the answer in an online dictionary. He couldn’t ask his staff. That would mean admitting that he didn’t know something that they probably did, and that would never do.
Sudden whooping sounds from the main CID office next door broke his concentration. He stood up and, to the casual observer, he might have looked something like a wading bird unfolding its long legs and neck. Blount was unusually tall, just over six feet six, and skeletally thin. His two young nephews had been known to use him as a unit of measurement; one ‘Uncle Brian’ equated to two metres and the use of the term made estimations of height and length much easier for them to visualise. He opened his office door and ducked his head under the lintel.