Chapter Twenty-two Darker Past Midnight

      When I went to collect Grumps’ chapter on Saturday morning (all days of the week being equal, as far as Grumps and I were concerned) Zillah, who was sitting at the kitchen table shuffling the Tarot with practised skill, told me he had gone out.

      ‘Out? But he hardly ever goes out in the mornings!’

      ‘Another change. That Hebe Winter came to see him yesterday – you could have knocked me down with a feather when I found her on the doorstep, looking down her long nose at me. And then there’s a phone call and off he goes up to Winter’s End right after breakfast. Drove himself too, and he doesn’t often do that, either.’

      ‘His sciatica wasn’t bothering him any more, then?’

      ‘Cleared up completely.’

      Grumps’ visiting seemed very odd, but I supposed they were discussing ways of defeating the encroachments of Digby Mann-Drake, for which an alliance of sorts evidently needed to be forged. He hadn’t looked as if he could do anything more exciting than pull a rabbit out of a hat, but appearances can be deceptive.

      Zillah, pushing aside the remains of her breakfast, had begun to lay out the cards into a familiar pattern, but she looked up and added, ‘He said the latest chapter was on his desk.’

      I was sure this book was twice as long as any of his others. And was it my imagination, or had his writing taken a darker turn? I only hoped his hero was up to the challenge!

      Grumps returned in an expansive mood and when I took his printed chapter back he informed me that Hebe Winter had invited him to attend an emergency meeting of the Parish Council on Tuesday, in an advisory capacity.

      ‘But they had a meeting only on Thursday!’

      ‘Events regarding Mann-Drake have taken yet another turn since then, and there is no time to be lost, Chloe. I knew of his plan to close down the tennis club and some picnic field or other, but now he is trying to levy a charge on the householders living along the edge of the Green, simply for driving across a strip of grass to their property.’

      ‘How on earth can he do that?’

      ‘He is trying to resurrect some obsolete ancient right conferred with the Lord of the Manor title. Six houses are affected, and each has received solicitor’s letters demanding either a one-off payment of fifteen per cent of the house’s value, or a very steep annual rental fee. It is, as they say, money for old rope.’

      ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing, but I would have thought they needed a good lawyer, rather than a warlock,’ I suggested, and he gave me a stern look.

      ‘Fortunately, the vicar is more far-sighted than you, for it was he who suggested consulting me about Mann-Drake. I find myself quite liking him.’

      ‘I wouldn’t go that far, but I absolve him from everything in the past except stupidity and self-centredness. I hear your sciatica has magically disappeared, by the way, Grumps?’

      ‘Quite vanished,’ he agreed. ‘A momentary twinge…or three.’

      Felix said he couldn’t meet us in the Falling Star that evening, because he was going to play darts with Raffy and the gardeners from Winter’s End in the Green Man instead. He did do this sometimes, only not on a night when he usually met us, so I supposed he was still sulking over our spat.

      But at least it meant that Poppy and I could have a good girls-together session, when she told me all over again about the things she was looking for in a man. It was a fairly modest list really, and all the qualities and assets were possessed by Felix, such as not living with his mother (he rarely even sees Mags and has never lived with her) and having his own hair and teeth.

      ‘I’m even starting to feel desperate enough to try the lonely hearts columns one more time,’ she confessed, so it was a pity Felix wasn’t there, so I could have tipped the love potion straight into his drink – and probably hers too, for good measure – then maybe banged their heads together. It was so blindingly obvious to me now that they were made for each other, that I didn’t see why they hadn’t realised it.

      ‘Don’t do anything hasty,’ I counselled.

      ‘But the time is slipping by faster and faster and I would really love to have children,’ she said sadly. ‘I can’t leave it too late and right now I’m starting to think I’d settle for a Mr OK, never mind Mr Right!’

      ‘Give it just a little more time,’ I suggested. ‘Remember what the cards said about patience paying off in the long run?’

      ‘Yes, only I’m running out of patience. But what about you?’ she asked, then said Jake had confided in her the other night that he was afraid I was falling for David all over again.

      ‘I suppose he could be your Mr OK, if you wanted to settle down,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But you keep saying you don’t want to get married or have children.’

      ‘No, I don’t. David may have some thought of us getting back together – I’m not sure – but he’s forever talking about a woman called Mel Christopher, so on the whole, I think not. Do you know her?’

      ‘Yes, she rides a grey horse and she has the worst seat in the county. She was widowed a couple of years ago and then married Hebe Winter’s great-nephew, Jack Lewis, but it was a brief mistake and they’re getting divorced. Or perhaps they are divorced by now? I don’t know. She’s beautiful, though, with blonde hair and brown eyes.’

      ‘That rings a bell. I think I may have seen her about.’

      ‘I wouldn’t have thought she’d want to marry again so quickly, so perhaps it is you that David’s interested in. Aren’t you seeing him again tomorrow?’

      I nodded. ‘We’re going to look at a couple of properties a bit further towards Appleby Bridge. But it isn’t like a date or anything. I’ve made it plain I’m happy on my own, I only want friendship.’

      ‘Well, you know how stupid men are at picking up signals, Chloe. You practically have to hammer bulletins into their heads to get the message through.’

      Raffy must have managed to pick some of my messages up, though, because now he seemed to be doing his best to stay out of my way.

      Whenever I caught sight of him in the distance, I only had to blink and he’d vanished again: now you see him, now you don’t.

      On Raffy’s first Sunday the church was packed to the rafters at both services. Most of the villagers turned out, right down to the Catholics and Methodists, while the curious from further afield crowded into the aisles, so that according to Poppy they were packed in like sardines and if anyone had fainted from the massed body heat they would still have stayed upright.

      Felix was there, Janey went with Mags, and had my own mother been around, I expect she would have gone too, brazen sinner or not. Even Jake went, with Kat – he’d flirted with the Church briefly at junior school and got himself baptised, so he didn’t see why he shouldn’t.

      Mr Lees played them all in with a favourite fugue, though to everyone’s astonishment at the end he broke into a lively rendition of ‘I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside’. Something must have come over him, probably Raffy.

      After the Sunday morning service Jake and Kat lingered behind to look round the church, which may have seemed odd of them, but they are both keen on history and it is very old. Apparently there’s an almost unique very early sixteenth-century Heaven and Hell window