Murder in the Manger Read online

  I grimaced. “My script isn’t exactly Shakespeare. To be honest, I’m a bit worried everyone will think it’s dreadful.”

  He reached across the table and patted my hand. “Never go to meet trouble half way, my dear. It’ll find you soon enough without your help.”

  5 The Professional Verdict

  “You know your script is an absolute joke, don’t you?”

  Damian threw the dog-eared pages down on the kitchen table. I hadn’t asked him to read it. After I’d let him back into the house following Joshua’s departure, he’d just helped himself to my script, while I was upstairs changing out of my firework party clothes: a silk dress and thermal underwear. Hector had been chivalrous the night before, sweetly declaring “It’s like playing Pass the Parcel.”

  I’d come downstairs now in an unflattering ski sweater and corduroy leggings. Not that Damian would have noticed if I was dressed as the back half of the pantomime horse. No, actually he would, but only to give me stage directions.

  I stood at the foot of the stairs to keep my distance.

  “I’m surprised you get the jokes, not knowing who is playing which part. If you lived here and knew everyone, as I do” – that was a bit of an exaggeration, but he wasn’t to know – “you’d find them hilarious.”

  “No, no, I don’t mean it’s funny. I mean the whole script is a joke. And not in a good way. In any case, should you really have jokes in a religious play? It’s like adding a song and dance routine to King Lear. As for working with children and animals, well, really—”

  “The Players and the school staff are very taken with the concept,” I said stiffly. “Bringing the schoolchildren and village drama group together will provide an invaluable educational experience. The Players needed a script to suit them. The children wanted a nativity play instead of a pantomime for a change. My script has saved the day for all of them.”

  Damian shot me a disparaging look. “And are any of them theatre professionals, as I am?”

  To avoid answering, I busied myself clearing away the used mugs and biscuit crumbs. He got up to stand behind me as I washed up the mugs, putting his hands around my waist beneath the ski sweater.

  “Damian, get off me!”

  I wriggled out of his grasp, remaining as far away from him as possible while I dried them up.

  “And my professional advice and expertise could save your little play from disaster.”

  He’d barely been an hour in my house, but already he was making me feel as if I’d just travelled back in time to the uncertain, undermined Sophie that I was when I’d moved to the village. This was a journey I had no wish to undertake. But nor did I want to lose face before my new friends by my play turning into a fiasco.

  Damian returned to the table, picked up a pen, and began marking director’s notes on my script.

  6 The Would-be Lodger

  Fancy a drink at The Bluebird at seven? H x.

  Hector’s text around noon was as welcome as a file inside a cake for a prisoner.

  I’d have fancied anything at The Bluebird, including a wrestling match with a crocodile, rather than spend a moment longer in my cottage with Damian. Even after he’d had a long shower to freshen up, I felt as if his presence was polluting my new territory.

  When I went to gather up the wet towels I knew he’d have left on the bathroom floor, I found him testing out my aunt’s double bed – my bed, as it was now. I stood on the threshold to admonish him.

  “Don’t go getting ideas, Damian, this is my room.”

  He used his big blue eyes like a weapon. “But surely after all our years together, this little break doesn’t change things between us?”

  I threw the wettest towel at his head. “Damian, my moving to Wendlebury was not an interval between acts.” I thought theatrical terms might make the message clear. “It was curtains for our relationship. Last bow. No encores. Ever.”

  He smirked. “Not even a quick matinee performance? A revival of a much-loved classic for old times’ sake?”

  I really wanted to beat him at his own game.

  “Damian, that particular theatre has gone dark once and for all. The box office is closed. Boarded up. Show’s over.”

  Some of my confidence was starting to seep back. “And besides, the role of Sophie’s boyfriend has been recast. No further auditions necessary.”

  He heaved himself off the bed.

  “So where am I supposed to sleep, then?”

  “Where you usually do. In your van. Preferably somewhere far away on continental Europe.”

  He looked glum as he squeezed past me on to the landing. Then he paused and pointed into the spare room, so inviting with its faded sunshine yellow floral bedspread and matching curtains.

  “What about in there? The decor’s a bit twee, but I could always give it a makeover, if you like. I’m good at decorating.”

  I thought of all the happy summer nights I had spent in that room when I stayed with Auntie May in my school holidays. Not content with disrupting my present, now Damian was trampling on my past. I shook my head.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  He shrugged and trudged back down the stairs. I found myself drifting into the spare room and lying down on the bed to think. When Damian turned on the television too loudly downstairs, I wrapped the eiderdown around me for comfort.

  Waking up a little later, I wondered hazily why I was so tired and hungry. Then I remembered the night before. My broad smile was extinguished by the noise from downstairs, reminding me of Damian’s presence. Returning to the kitchen, I made us each a toasted sandwich for a late lunch, then curled up on my bed with Sherlock Holmes, counting down the minutes until it was Hector o’clock.

  7 Escape to the Bluebird

  “Don’t worry, he’s not staying,” I reassured Hector over a shared bottle of Pinot Grigio.

  “Not staying with you, or not staying in the village?”

  Hector, poker-faced, was fiddling with his beer mat, which was now fraying at the edges.

  “Neither. I’ve said he can stay tonight to catch up on his sleep after his long drive from Germany. Do you know how many accidents are caused by driving while you’re tired? Damian quoted me some horrendous figures.”

  Hector said nothing, but ripped the beermat in two.

  “And I have told him about us. You and me. So I’m not giving him any false hopes.” I reached across the table to put the remnants of the beermat in an empty glass out of harm’s way. “And that he’s got to sleep in the van.”

  Hector brightened a little. “Good.”

  I smiled reassuringly. “Honestly, you’ve got nothing to worry about. He’s no competition, in any respect.” I stared at him until he looked into my eyes, then he bucked up.

  “OK, Sophie, I’ll take your word for it.”

  I tried to steer our conversation on to more comfortable ground. “So how were your parents?”

  “Oh fine, same as usual. You know.”

  I didn’t know. I’d not yet met them. I pressed him for details. “So what did you do with them all day?”

  “Oh, the usual. Ate lunch, drank tea, went for a walk, looked at old photos, played cards. Family stuff.”

  His description was so vague that for a moment I wondered whether he had been with another woman. I tried a different tack.

  “What’s Clevedon like? I’ve never been there.”

  “There are worse places to visit your parents.”

  “What, you mean like prison?” I thought making him laugh might ease the tension, but it just sent him off at a tangent.

  “Did you have your police interview today? I’m having mine tomorrow.”

  I hadn’t intended to bring up that topic tonight. We’d had more than our fair share of crime in the village since I’d moved here, and I wanted to put this latest episode behind me as quickly as possible.

  “Yes. But let’s not talk about that now. Let’s talk about things to look forward to. Like Christmas. When does
the festive season really kick off in Wendlebury? I’m looking forward to my first village Christmas.”

  Hector’s shoulders relaxed a little. “I’m quite traditional. I don’t do anything Christmassy in the bookshop till after Remembrance Day.”

  I tried not to look disappointed. “I bet Carol goes to town with festive decorations for the village shop, doesn’t she? She put so much time and effort into Halloween.”

  Hector put down his glass. “Then prepare to be surprised. She doesn’t do much at all for Christmas, beyond providing for her customers’ seasonal grocery needs. She doesn’t even put up decorations.”

  I traced my forefinger around the rim of my empty wineglass.

  “You’re right, I am surprised. Carol is the last person I’d expect to be a Scrooge. Don’t tell me she keeps her shop open on Christmas Day?”

  Hector reached for the wine bottle to replenish our glasses. “No, she’s not quite that bad. And it’s not fair to call her a Scrooge. Her motives aren’t meanness or profit. She’s simply not keen on Christmas.”

  I frowned. “I didn’t know that. I hope it won’t stop her from making the costumes for my nativity play.” Carol was the Players’ wardrobe mistress. I’d rather taken her cooperation for granted. I took a sip of wine, then held the chilly glass to my cheek to cool it. “Maybe I should have let the school stick with its usual pantomime.”

  “It’s not the religious element that puts her off. Remember, she is a churchgoer.”

  Hector held the wine bottle up to the light to see how much we had left, then set it down on a fresh beermat and gazed at me, as if wondering whether to share a confidence.

  “The thing is – and please don’t tell Carol I’ve told you – she had a traumatic event one Christmas. I think that’s spoiled it for her ever since.”

  My eyes widened. This sounded juicy. “Poor Carol. You mean like a break-in at her shop? An armed raid?”

  Hector shook his head and looked away. “No, much worse than that – in her terms, at least.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward. “One Christmas Eve, when she was about twenty, she ran away with someone much older than herself. She knew her parents would disapprove, but he’d turned her head.”

  I clapped my hands over my mouth. “Who was he? A stranger in town?”

  Hector smiled wanly. “Believe it or not, someone from the village. But no-one you know. He never returned. She came back alone. I was only little at the time, so it passed me by, but my mum was close friends with Carol’s mum, and she told me about it years later.”

  “What was he like?”

  “A complete reprobate. Arrogant, lazy and conceited, my mum said. He persuaded her to go off in his van, telling her he had jobs fixed up for them both down in Brighton, but he’d made that up.”

  It was hard to associate such foolish behaviour with the down-to-earth Carol that I knew.

  “Did her parents report her missing? Did they call the police?”

  “No point,” said Hector. “She was over the age of consent, and she had left a note making it clear she’d gone of her own free will. There was nothing they could do, except keep her bedroom ready and hope she might return.”

  “Which she did?”

  Hector nodded. “Eventually. But she kept them waiting a whole year. Poor souls – their only child, too.”

  As an only child myself, I understood.

  “When she came back, she had nothing but what she was standing up in. She was too ashamed to come back at first, so when her boyfriend abandoned her a couple of months after they left, she took refuge in a homeless shelter and got a job with a room in some seedy bar.”

  “How awful.” I put down my glass.

  “But the publican must have been a decent type, because he persuaded her to return home the following Christmas. Her parents welcomed her back, of course, but on Boxing Day her mother had a severe stroke, and was never really well again.”

  He gazed into the distance for a moment.

  “And the rest you know – that she stayed nursing her mother and helping her father in the shop, till in time it was their turn to leave her.”

  “They ran away too?”

  He pursed his lips.

  “No, Sophie, they died.”

  “Goodness. No wonder she finds Christmas so difficult.”

  “So now you see why switching to a panto would serve no purpose at all.”

  “Just as well, as I’d never be able to write one of those.”

  “I could help you, if you like?”

  I shot him a dubious look. “I shouldn’t have thought it was your style either. Or is Hermione Minty hankering to play a pantomime dame?” Hermione Minty was the penname Hector used to write romantic novels, the profits of which secretly subsidised his bookshop. “Do you have panto experience?”

  “Only that I’ve seen every school panto staged in the village for the last seven years. Which is about seven too many. Still, better a panto than a farce.”

  For a moment I thought he’d been speaking to Damian about my script, then I looked up to see his green eyes twinkling.

  “Oh, Hector, you are a tease!”

  He smiled. “I aim to please.”

  8 Dislodged

  Always glad to return to work after the weekend, I was especially eager to leave my cottage that Monday before Damian surfaced from his van. To salve my conscience for making him sleep outside, I’d given him a spare key so that he could use my bathroom. I hoped he’d abandon his plan to direct the Players now he knew the post was unpaid, and instead head off to his parents’ house, his Plan B bolt-hole till he returned to mainland Europe in February. With luck, he’d be gone before I got home from work, sparing us both any further unpleasantness.

  I was therefore irritated when I popped down to the village shop later to find Damian deep in conversation with Carol. She was leaning coquettishly on the counter, lapping up his every word.

  Damian turned to greet me as if he’d lived in the village all his life. “Oh, hello, Sophie. Carol and I were just chatting about costumes for our nativity play.” So it was his play too now, was it? “She’s got some brilliant ideas.”

  Carol beamed in appreciation. Her skills as a dressmaker were much admired in the village, but Damian must have been laying on the praise even thicker than she was used to.

  She turned to me, pink-cheeked. “Damian’s been telling me all about his touring theatre company. What an exciting and rewarding life, Sophie! I can’t imagine how you could bear to leave it behind to move to Wendlebury.”

  I suppressed my impulse to put her straight. There was no point in crushing the pleasure she was deriving from Damian’s honeyed words. She didn’t have much other excitement in her life. I left them to it and headed down the aisle to the refrigerator for some milk, planning a swift exit.

  Carol called after me, “You know, it will be such a thrill for the Players to have a professional detector for once, and the children too.”

  Smiling stiffly, I made a mental note to explain to Damian afterwards that Carol’s choice of words was sometimes inexact.

  “Unfortunately there’s been a misunderstanding, Carol. Damian thought it was a paid post, and he needs to earn his keep. So he can’t take the job after all. He’s going to get seasonal retail work instead, or perhaps be a Christmas postman, while he’s staying with his parents in Northampton. Aren’t you, Damian?” I tested my new dog-trainer look on him. “I’m sure your parents will be glad to have you at home. Such a treat for them when you’re usually abroad so much.”

  Carol paused to think for a moment. “Well, that’s easily solved. He can come and stay with me till the play’s over. I’ve got spare bedrooms, and I had been thinking of taking in lodgers. It seems a crime to have rooms standing empty when there are people needing them.”

  She gazed at Damian hopefully. He coughed, uncomfortable. “That’s a kind offer, Carol, but I’m afraid Sophie’s right. I don’t have the wherewithal to pay you rent.”


  Carol waved away his objection. “Oh, don’t worry about rent. From what you’ve just been telling me about how good you are at making stage sets, it sounds as if we could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. Instead of paying me rent, you could do some odd jobs in my house and shop. A spot of decorating, perhaps.”

  I fumbled for some change in my coat pocket. It didn’t occur to me that Damian, who had never fixed a thing in any of my flats, would say yes.

  His surprises were never the welcome sort.

  “Thank you, Carol, you’re on,” he said, beaming. “That would fill the gap nicely for me. But only till the play’s over. I’ll be like Mary Poppins – I’ll go when I’m no longer needed. Then I’ll head up to my folks. So I’ll be able to help you too, after all, Sophie. That’s win-win, eh?”

  I felt I’d won the booby prize.

  “So if you tell me where your house is, Carol, I’ll go and move my van there now.”

  Carol froze, her hand on the till to ring up my purchase.

  “Your van, Damian?” Her face clouded for a moment, and I realised she must have been thinking about her Christmas misadventure long ago.

  “My travelling theatre van, Carol.” He made it sound more glamorous than it was.

  She took my money and gave me my change. Then, on a white paper bag torn from the bunch hanging by a string from a nail next to the till, she scribbled down her address, sketched a street map with the effortless lines of someone good at art, and handed it to Damian. As he strode out of the shop, studying the route, she was positively quivering.

  When the door swung closed behind him, she emitted a little sigh of satisfaction. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he? It must have been hard for you to break up with him.”

  I forced a smile. “That’s probably why it took me seven years.”

  “You did what?”

  I thought it better to tell Hector rather than let him find out from someone else about Damian’s new arrangement.

  “It’s not my fault. I didn’t do anything. They decided it between themselves. And at least it means I needn’t put him up.”