Eleven Pipers Piping: A Father Christmas Mystery Read online

  “Surely, Mrs. Prowse, that isn’t—”

  “Heavens, Mr. Christmas! Of course it isn’t.”

  He followed Bumble into the sitting room, where the three girls—minus the never-on-time Emily Swan—were gathered around the games table, which held two silver trays laden with Lilliputian versions of provender—tiny sausages, mini savoury muffins, chicken goujons, grissini, baby quiches. He was about to reach for one of the pizza fingers when he heard someone—Madrun—say “tut” followed by “those are for the girls, Mr. Christmas.”

  Becca and Ariel regarded him warily over their flutes of ginger ale, as children might when confronted by a transgressing adult, particularly if that adult was a priest.

  He had an idea. He gently brushed his hand by Miranda’s head, then exclaimed, “Look what I found! Miranda’s got ten pence behind her ear.”

  “Oh, Daddy,” Miranda groaned, as he showed the coin to the others.

  Ariel and Becca’s expressions brightened with curiosity as Tom made quick movements with his hands.

  “Oh, look, the coin’s disappeared. I wonder where it went? Perhaps Ariel has it behind her ear. Good heavens, yes! Only Ariel has fifty pee behind her ear.”

  Ariel shrieked as Tom once again demonstrated the coin, then, with more brisk handwork, caused it to disappear. When he pulled a two-pound coin from behind Becca’s ear, both girls chorused, “How did you do that?”

  “It’s magic.”

  “It isn’t,” Miranda said firmly.

  “It’s a magic trick, then. Shall I teach it to you?”

  “Don’t you have another engagement?” Madrun regarded him over the top of her glasses.

  Tom sighed ostentatiously and moved with theatrical reluctance across the rug, as he might have done upon the stage. “Yes, I suppose I do. Well, girls, enjoy your fine supper. Mrs. Prowse has outdone herself, as usual. I pray I shall enjoy the humble meal that awaits me at the hotel.”

  He turned into the hall and quickly crammed three pizza fingers into his mouth. Heaven! His heart and mind may have obeyed St. Paul’s counsel to put away childish things when he gave up his career in magic for the priesthood, but for his stomach there were moments of apostasy.

  CHAPTER TWO

  No, Bumble, you can’t come.” Tom edged out the door of the vicarage so the dog wouldn’t escape. But he had barely slopped four steps into the damp snow when he heard the door open and Bumble’s victorious bark.

  “Mr. Christmas, you forgot this.”

  Madrun was pitched forward under the lamplight, restraining the dog with one hand and holding forth a box suspended from a loop of string.

  “What is it?”

  “The sweet. You’re to take it with you.”

  “Oh, lovely! All is not lost, then.” Tom took the box, a light cardboard affair, such as one might get in a baker’s shop, and tucked it under his arm.

  “Someone might think you … Scotophobic, Mr. Christmas.”

  “No one loves a bit of Dundee cake more than I, Mrs. Prowse,” Tom responded to the closing door. He refrained from informing her that scotophobic referred more properly to fear of darkness, cases of which seemed to be rare in Thornford—a good thing, as street lighting was entirely absent and likely to remain so, especially with the Thornford Regis branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England so vociferous on the subject of light pollution.

  “And Mr. Christmas …”

  The door opened again. Madrun leaned out.

  “… you have red sauce on your upper lip.”

  The door closed.

  Rumbled, Tom thought, reaching for the offending stain with his tongue. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, wrote James. Not me, miserable pizza pirate that I am.

  He looked up through the scrim of dancing snowflakes towards the night sky, its curtain of low-hanging clouds silvered by the floodlights illuminating the blunt Norman tower of St. Nicholas’s. He glanced at it fondly as he switched on his torch and turned the beam of light down the path towards Church Walk. In the short time he had been in Thornford, he had grown to love the little village church with its freshly lime-washed walls, its crooked aisle, its delicately carved reredos with the signs of the Four Evangelists, its wineglass pulpit, and its Victorian stained glass, and almost thought of it as his own property, a covetousness that he was reminded to banish in prayer. The Church House Inn, which hugged the corner of Church Walk and Poynton Shute, shone as a beacon, too, its leaded windows glowing gold and its perimeters delineated by Christmas lights, which Eric Swan, the landlord, had yet to take down. But beyond, as he crossed Poynton Shute, the village lay in velvety blackness, punctuated only by tiny bright squares here and there jumping with television.

  At the corner, stopping to dig snow from the inside of his shoes and regretting that he hadn’t worn his wellies instead, Tom noted a distant silhouette, limned in a torch’s beam, moving down Poynton Shute, the gait—lumbering, rolling—recognisable. Roger Pattimore was rotund and pink-faced and projected an air of amiable distraction. In his kilt, resting below an unzipped Barbour too small for his girth, he looked like a hairless Clarissa Dickson Wright. In one hand he held a large black case containing, Tom presumed, a bagpipe; in the other, almost lost in the meatiness of his palm, was a mobile phone.

  “… then I expect we won’t see you for another fortnight,” he overheard Roger say into the device.

  Roger followed this with a grunting noise; he was close enough now for Tom to see him roll his eyes.

  “Yes … well, cheerio, then,” Roger signed off, sounding less than cheerful. He snapped the mobile shut. “Bless! That’s three cancellations I’ve had!”

  “Some don’t want to chance the weather.”

  Roger shone his torch over the snow accumulating by the stone walls. “Doesn’t seem too awful, does it?”

  “Reports beg to differ.”

  “I haven’t been paying attention. I’ve been so busy and Mother has got one of her migraines what with the barometer falling. Fortunately, Tiffany Snape’s come off her shift at the post office. She’s minding the shop for the next few hours.”

  “Ah,” Tom said, hoping the response was sufficiently sympathetic. Enid Pattimore practised hypochondria the way Steven Gerrard practised football—with finesse. Most villagers thought her simply possessed by morbid thoughts of her own health, and, after several pastoral visits, Tom was inclined to agree, though he wasn’t sure: Enid did have, besides migraines, the most remarkable nosebleeds, even if the timing of the red tide seemed curiously opportune. Method or madness, however, the effect was the same—to keep her only child, a six-foot-two, seventeen-stone, late-fifty-something man on a short leash. “Is there anyone to look in on her?”

  “Karla said she would pop up. Poor Mother,” Roger added—ambiguously, Tom thought. Worry over his mother? Or worry over being visited by Karla Skynner, churchwarden, postmistress, and unrepentant bossyboots?

  “What’s that in your hand?” Roger flashed his torch against the box in Tom’s hand as they turned to trudge through the snow on Pennycross Road.

  “A sweet of some nature.” Tom bent into the wind and wrapped the collar of his coat tighter. “Mrs. Prowse’s contribution.”

  “Oh? I thought we were having … well, anyway, perhaps your Madrun’s making amends for that bollocking she gave me the other day. Those eggs were fresh. And so was the milk!”

  “Pride cometh before a fallen Yorkshire. I’m sure she’ll recover her sensibilities before long.”

  Roger made a dismissive noise. “Is your lip bleeding?” He had turned his torch on Tom’s face.

  “Oh, is that still there?” Tom blinked into the blaze of light and rubbed around his mouth with his free hand. “I had a bit of pizza before I left.”

  “That’s cheating.”

  “Well …”

  “You might be surprised, you know.” Roger squinted against the falling snowflakes.

  “Mrs. Prowse said ‘pleasantly’ surprised.”

>   “I’m not sure I can supply ‘pleasantly.’ ”

  “Oh?”

  “I don’t mean the food. I mean the atmosphere, sorry to say.”

  “I thought a Burns Supper was an experience not to be forgotten.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Tom, though we’ve had some great fun over the years. Bless, it’s one of the few times of the year I seem to get out of an evening. But … oh … I don’t know.” Roger trailed off, flaring the darkened windows of the Tidy Dolly Internet Tea Room with an absent flick of his torch. “I suppose Poppy is still on holiday in America.”

  “Until the end of the month, apparently.”

  Late middle-aged and fussy Poppy Cozens had owned the tearoom for decades, but when she installed the Internet she transformed her life, meeting an agreeable Californian on an online dating service.

  “Perhaps it’s time to call it a day.”

  “Really?” Tom was surprised. “I thought Poppy did rather well with her tearoom—all those coach tours coming in and so on. And if you don’t have a computer, it’s the only place in the village to—”

  “No, no. I meant us—well, not you—us, the band. Although Poppy is actually selling the Tidy Dolly. I heard the other day—”

  “The Thistle But Mostly Rose South Devon Pipe Band?” Tom cut him off. “You’re an institution!”

  “So were Lyons Corner Houses and look what became of them.”

  “Can’t be that bad. Whatever’s the problem?”

  Roger seemed to ponder the question as they continued through the snow. “Will, in part, I think. And I’m sorry to say it. When he joined five years ago, when he and Caroline came to Thornford and bought the hotel, he seemed to inject a new energy into the band, especially when he became pipe major. Well, you know—he’s Australian and a cricketer and all that, energetic, very positive, sort of a large personality, you understand. He sometimes seems too … large for the village. But lately—”

  The muffled tinkling of “Ode to Joy” rose above their footfalls. Roger tucked his torch in his armpit and reached into his coat pocket. “Bless, another one, I expect.” In the blue light cast by the mobile’s screen, Tom could see Roger’s face crease with disappointment. “It’s a text. Look.”

  Tom squinted at the tiny lettering and read, CYN SAYS 2 MUCH SNO SO U CANT GO SORRY DAVE.

  “Well, give him a point for rhyming,” he said, handing the phone back to Roger.

  “He lives at Upper Coombe Farm. It’s all of three miles away!” Roger slipped the phone into his pocket and sighed. “I’m not surprised. His wife hates the pipes. In better weather, we sometimes practise in Dave’s four-acre field and have a barbecue afterwards. Cyn straps one of those music player whatsits—”

  “iPod?”

  “—to her arm and wears an enormous pair of earphones.”

  “Not to everyone’s taste, I suppose.”

  “I don’t know how that can be. When I hear the triumphant skirl, my heart simply rises in my chest. There’s no sound as splendid as the pipes in massed formation. When we played the marine festival at Weymouth—”

  “You’re not Scots, though.”

  “Must one be? Bless, there’s pipe bands the world over. I read in Pipe and Drum Monthly of a band of some Indians or other in the Amazon who play the bagpipes and they’ve never stepped out of the jungle or the rain forest or whatever it is.”

  “And all kitted out, too? Kilt? Sporran?”

  “I’m not sure of that bit. I can’t recall a photograph with the article.”

  “Wool would be awfully scratchy in that heat.”

  “Kilts can be surprisingly cool. I can almost see the attraction of skirts to women. The ventilation, you know.”

  Tom glanced to his right to see Tilly Springett’s plump face framed in a bright mullion of her sitting room window. Her home—April Cottage—sat at an angle to the road and afforded her long views over the low wall of her garden, in summer a sea of blue delphiniums, towards the cottages and Purton Farm, the community field, opposite. Her eyes were raised heavenwards, pondering the snowfall, Tom guessed, and he lifted a hand to wave in greeting before remembering that he and Roger were but imperceptible shadows trailing cones of torchlight.

  “Tilly’s husband was a band member, wasn’t he?”

  “A stalwart,” Roger responded. “Until a stroke took him and he couldn’t move one side of his body, poor fellow. He was the one who got me started on the pipes. Bless, that’s years ago now.”

  “It always strikes me as an odd instrument to want to learn, unless you’re part of a regiment or such,” Tom mused. “You wouldn’t take a bagpipe to play at a party.”

  “Gracie Fields took a harp to a party.”

  “But nobody asked her to play, if you recall the song.”

  Roger grunted. “At least a third of our little lot—the younger men at any rate—was drawn to the bagpipes because of Star Trek. Apparently in one of the films someone plays ‘Amazing Grace’ on the pipes at the funeral of one of the characters—the one with the pointed ears. Can’t think of his name.”

  “Spock.”

  “That’s right. That’s what inspired Victor, although he’s one of the few with any Scots in him. Bless, but you wouldn’t think it to look at him. His mother was Scottish. Or perhaps his gran. I can’t recall. He must be Asian on his father’s side. Hence the last name, Kaif.”

  “Is Victor the only thistle, then?”

  “You might count Will, though he was an adopted child. But his adoptive mother was of Scottish descent, I believe, so I guess we could count that. Moir is Will’s mother’s name, by the way. Did you know?”

  “No.”

  “Apparently his adoptive father did a bunk shortly after the adoption. Bless! Can you imagine? Then she emigrated to Australia, fresh start likely, who could blame her?”

  “Not me,” said Tom, who disliked tittletattle. “So you are mostly rose.”

  “Mostly, yes. With a smidge of lotus.”

  “Then Victor will be at the Supper, will he?”

  “Oh, I think so. After all, Molly—oops, I don’t want to spoil the surprise, the pleasant surprise, that is.”

  Tom raised an enquiring eyebrow, but realised it would be invisible in the dark. “Well,” he said, uncertain what Roger meant, “perhaps Victor’s attending tonight means fences have been mended as much as they can be.”

  “Bless, I hope so. We missed Victor at band practice through much of autumn, but you can hardly blame him for not coming.”

  “I think the sun rather went out of the sky for Victor and Molly the day Harry died.”

  Tom could hear Roger sigh deeply. “Poor lad. So tragic. I don’t know why he would have signed up for cricket in the first place. Hardly seemed the type.”

  “To please his father, perhaps. Or try to be like the other boys. But that isn’t why—”

  “I wonder if Will hadn’t laced into him so that day …,” Roger interrupted, on his own train of thought, then left the rest unsaid.

  “I think all of us must stop wondering that, Roger. I know one thing followed swiftly on the other, but …”

  Tom, too, left the rest unsaid. At a Friday-evening practice in late August, Will Moir, who coached the Under-15s, one of the youth teams at the Thornford Regis Cricket Club, had flared with rage at Harrison Kaif in language unbecoming an adult charged with children’s welfare. For one reason or another none of the other fathers was present to restrain him, but one of the boys captured part of the rant on his mobile and posted it to YouTube under the title “Coach Goes Mental.” Five days later, after the boy was last seen Saturday afternoon in Totnes, and a frantic search mounted, fourteen-year-old Harry Kaif’s body was found floating in the River Dart at Baltic Wharf. No note had been left anywhere. Some folk had conjoined the two events, but Tom knew that self-inflicted death invariably came at the end of a long period of suffering. He knew, too, but could say to no one, that Will had seen him privately as his priest and had agonised ov
er his outburst and possible hand in young Harry’s death.

  “Anyway,” Roger said, “Will and Victor seemed to have patched it up. They each brought their daughters to the Christmas pageant, remember? They seemed to have a civilised conversation.”

  “Yes … I presume.” As chaplain of the pipe band, Tom had, at Will’s request, arranged a pastoral meeting with the two men. They had joined together in Tom’s study on a rainy Saturday afternoon in late October, Molly having made it plain she wouldn’t let Will cross the threshold of her home and Will feeling too much the supplicant to ask Victor to cross his. Will had been ashen-faced, abject in contrition; Victor had responded with an almost impassive civility. A chat, a prayer, a handshake, and it was done and dusted. Tom was certain forgiveness had been sincerely sought, but uncertain it had been genuinely granted.

  Will had departed the vicarage first. Victor had lingered a time, the stoical mask slipping around the edges as he touched on life at the home front: Molly lashing out at Harry’s school for its ill vigilance against bullying, at various children for various cruelties, and at him, mostly him, Victor, for pushing their son into sport when it held only terrors for him and pulling away from the boy’s genuine passions. All of which he denied to Tom with rising indignation and sprinkled asides about Molly’s coddling her elder child and not the younger. Tom interjected with an earnest offer, rebuffed in the days after Harry’s death, to pay a pastoral visit on Molly, or meet with both of them, or do anything he could really, to help deliver them from this hell. But Victor drew in his shoulders and shook his head. No point, he said with ill grace as he tugged on his jacket and turned to leave. Tom watched him make his long-legged stride down the path to the gate to Poynton Shute, worried. If Molly and Victor didn’t soon join together to address their problems, assuage their grief—and forgive each other their trespasses—walls would rise around their hearts and shut out love. He knew this. He had once gathered a few foundation stones himself in his own marriage.