‘That’s true,’ said Tom. ‘It’s absolutely true!’
‘She has exceptional powers of concentration,’ said Miss Kristal. ‘She is not easily deceived. But when she gives her word, she means it.’
‘What about the future?’ asked Tom’s father. ‘Would you advise them to get hitched?’
‘Dad!’ said Tom in embarrassment.
There was a pause.
‘I would rather not say,’ said Miss Kristal. ‘Charlie, it’s getting late. We still have a long way to drive.’
Rufus had been listening intently. The answer had not satisfied him. ‘But you must have some idea whether he is suited to her.’
‘In general,’ said Miss Kristal, choosing her words with care, ‘I would not recommend a partnership between a Virgoan and a Taurean.’
‘A what?’ said Tom’s father.
‘A Virgoan and a Taurean. Virgo and Taurus are the virgin and the bull.’
‘The virgin and the bull! I like that!’ said Charlie.
‘It’s laughable,’ said Rufus with a sneer.
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Tom in a spasm of anger. ‘What’s there to laugh about?’
‘It’s so ridiculous,’ Rufus answered insensitively. ‘The virgin and the bull. It’s a joke. It’s got to be a joke!’
Rufus had scarcely finished speaking before Tom was across the floor and gripping him by the shirt front. ‘What are you getting at, you louse? You’d better take that back, before I break every bone in your body.’
‘Tom!’ ordered his father. ‘Take your hands off him! I want no violence here.’
‘He’s going to take back every word,’ said Tom, tightening his grip. ‘He insulted Alison. She’s a decent girl.’
Rufus hissed at Tom, ‘Is that what you think, or what she told you?’
Behind Tom, Alison gave a whimper of distress and ran from the pub.
Tom brought back his fist to strike Rufus, but his arm was seized from behind and forced against his back in a savage half-nelson. ‘There’ll be no brawling in this house,’ his father’s voice snarled into his ear. ‘Not from my own son, or anybody. I’m going to put you out, and you’d better cool off.’
Tom was strongly built, yet in that grip he could do nothing to prevent his father marching him to the door and thrusting him outside. It was debatable whether the father or the son suffered the greater humiliation.
The subdued atmosphere in the Harrow lasted only a short time. At Charlie’s prompting, Miss Kristal obligingly cast the horoscopes of almost everyone in the bar. Rufus, who had two quick double brandies and left early, was one of the few who professed to be uninterested in knowing the future. As events turned out, this proved to have been a fatal error, because he never reached home that night.
It was the following morning before his disappearance was reported by his parents. The overnight absence from home of a young man in his late teens is not usually treated by the police as a matter of grave concern. Yet in this case it was difficult to understand what might have happened. It was established that Rufus had left the Harrow soon after 9.45 p.m. He usually took some twenty minutes to walk the mile and a quarter along the Harford Road. It was a minor road that eventually linked with the A436, and it would have taken him past a couple of cottages and Hopkin’s Farm. A search of the road, ditches and adjoining fields yielded no clue to his disappearance.
The enquiries inevitably led to a reconstruction of the events the evening of the incident in the Harrow. Everyone present was questioned except Miss Kristal and her companion Charlie, who had left in their Alfa-Romeo about 10 p.m. As they would have driven along the Harford Road, it was possible that they would have passed Rufus, but no one knew where to trace them in Wales, not even Miss Kristal’s newspaper office. It seemed that Miss Kristal had anticipated a longish stay in Wales, because before leaving Fleet Street she had filed Your Stars Today for the next four weeks.
Tom and his father were questioned closely about the incident in the public bar. Tom stated that after his father had ejected him, he ran after Alison and escorted her home. The vicarage was in the opposite direction from Rufus’s route. Alison was able to corroborate what Tom had said.
A theory was advanced in the village that the journalist, Charlie, well over the limit by the time he had left the Harrow with Miss Kristal and taken the wheel of the Alfa-Romeo, had run Rufus down and killed him, then taken fright and bundled the body into the boot of the car to dispose of it in some remote lake in Wales. But at the end of the month Charlie and Miss Kristal were traced by the police, and the car was examined by forensic experts. There was no evidence to support the theory. The couple claimed that they had no recollection of having seen Rufus or anyone else on the Harford Road after they had left the Harrow.
So Rufus Peel was listed as a missing person, one of the tens of thousands on the police computer. For two years there were no developments in the case. Tom and Alison were married in the village church and the reception was held at the Harrow. Then, within a fortnight of the wedding, the remains of Rufus were discovered at the bottom of a silage tank on Hopkin’s Farm.
The autopsy revealed that he had died violently. Both legs and one arm were shattered, the rib cage had been crushed, the spinal column had been severed and the skull splintered. The Home Office pathologist stated his opinion that the multiple injuries had been caused by a heavy motor vehicle, probably a tractor. It was likely that the victim had been run over not once, but repeatedly, as if deliberately.
The police picked up Tom and took him to Gloucester for questioning. After several hours he made a confession. He admitted having caused Rufus’s death. He stated that on the night his father had ejected him from the Harrow he had not, as previously claimed, taken Alison home. He had made his way to the farm, sat in the seat of a tractor at the farm entrance and waited for Rufus to come along the road. His fury at what had happened in the Harrow, the slanderous insinuation Rufus had made about Alison in the public bar the first time she had ever set foot in the place, had turned him crazy for vengeance. He had driven the tractor straight at Rufus and felled him. He had driven over him and then reversed the tractor and crushed the body again. He had done it again, and then dragged the lifeless body into the yard and disposed of it under the silage.
At the assizes, Tom pleaded guilty to the murder of Rufus. In sentencing him, the judge allowed that there had been strong provocation, but ruled that the interval between the provocation and the crime did not allow sufficient grounds for a verdict of manslaughter. Tom was given a life sentence.
In Middle Slaughter there was considerable sympathy for Tom. When he was released on parole after serving eleven years, he was given back his job on Hopkin’s Farm. He was given a cottage on the site and he lived there with Alison, who had waited loyally for him to serve his sentence. The villagers still called them the virgin and the bull.
One lunchtime soon after Tom’s release, Deborah Kristal chanced to meet Charlie in a Fleet Street wine bar. The conversation soon got round to Middle Slaughter. ‘I thought I might go down there again,’ said Charlie. ‘Care to join me, sweetie? Another cosy weekend in Wales?’
‘Using my car, I suppose? No thank you, Charlie. Nothing personal, just the price of petrol these days. What do you want to go to Middle Slaughter for?’
‘Tom Hunt’s out. I thought of offering the poor devil a tenner for his story. It’s worth another airing in the Sundays. It made a big enough impact when it happened.’
‘I shouldn’t if I were you,’ said Miss Kristal.