She was interrupted by a ringing from the vicar’s phone. ‘Excuse me.’ He looked at the display. ‘I’d better take this. It’s the police.’
During the call, Carole and Jude exchanged looks of frustration. Most of Bob’s responses were ‘Yes’ or ‘Right’. It was impossible to guess what information he was responding to.
When he ended the call, they both looked at him expectantly.
‘Well?’ demanded Carole. ‘Is there anything you can tell us?’
‘Yes, there is,’ he replied slowly. ‘In fact, they want me to tell you. They want everyone in Fethering to get the message. So, as they put it, all of the gossip and accusations will stop.’
‘What is the message they want everyone to get?’
‘That the police are concluding their investigations. They are convinced there was nothing suspicious about the fall that killed Leonard Mallett. He died a natural death.’
SIX
Within a week, the ripples caused by the scene at Leonard Mallett’s wake had spread outwards to nothingness, and the placid, level surface of Fethering life returned. A new report on the possible rerouting of the A27 around Fedborough (an issue which had been reported on every three years for the past thirty without ever prompting any action) provided fresh material for argument among the sages at the bar of the Crown & Anchor. And Fethering gossip continued to create elaborate fabrications, into whose weave were inserted a few narrow threads of truth.
Only Carole and Jude, it seemed, regarded investigation into the circumstances of Leonard Mallett’s death as unfinished business. And, with the passage of time, even their urgency to do something faded.
‘No, what I’m talking about is a community choir,’ said Heather Mallett.
‘Based here in the pub?’ asked Ted Crisp.
‘Yes, exactly,’ said KK Rosser.
Carole and Jude were pleased to be part of the little group in the Crown & Anchor that Wednesday evening. Though Jude would not have stood on ceremony, Carole felt reassured that their previous introduction to KK, by the arcane protocols of Fethering, justified their being introduced to Heather Mallett, a woman who still held an aura of mystery for her.
Now it wasn’t just the glasses and the longer hair that had transformed her previously beige image. The glasses were there, the oxblood ones she had worn at the funeral. And the hair had now been skilfully shaped and animated with a bit of bottled colour. But the rest of her wardrobe had changed too. It was now late March, and unseasonally warm enough for Fethering residents to murmur darkly about global warming. To match the weather, Heather Mallett was dressed in a linen shirt with vertical blue and white stripes over scarlet linen trousers. On her feet were white canvas espadrilles.
Her manner had changed too. Of course, neither Carole nor Jude had ever spent time with her before, but they had heard reports around the village of her generally cowed demeanour. It was certainly unexpected to see her being so expansive in the Crown & Anchor and taking the initiative with Ted Crisp.
‘So, let me get this straight,’ said the landlord. ‘The idea is that you run the choir here … what, once a month?’
‘No, once a week,’ Heather replied.
‘Yes,’ KK agreed. ‘Mondays. Like you’re always saying, business is slack on Mondays.’
‘And what about me having to get an entertainment licence?’
‘No problem. The choir wouldn’t be entertaining people.’
‘Oh, you’re going to be that bad, are you?’ asked the landlord, and guffawed.
‘Ha bloody ha.’ The guitarist grinned wearily. ‘I do set them up for you, don’t I, Ted?’
‘Yeah. Very generous, thanks.’
‘No, but the point is,’ KK went on, ‘that we’d just be rehearsing here, like for fun.’
‘Sorry, I don’t get it.’
Heather intervened. ‘The fact is, Ted, that a lot of people like singing with a choir, just for the sake of it.’
‘Do they?’
‘It’s an extremely popular leisure activity. Very therapeutic, too.’
‘I’ve heard that.’ The landlord shook his shaggy head. ‘I must say I don’t get it. Being in a choir with all them other people. If I’m on stage – you know, like back when I was doing the stand-up – I want people looking at me. God, if I’m putting in all that effort, I want people to know what I’m doing. Don’t see the fun of being with a group, where nobody notices whether you’re there or not.’
‘No,’ Heather agreed, ‘you don’t get it, do you? But there are people out there, you know, who get a real charge from community activities.’
‘Well, I don’t.’ Carole couldn’t stop herself. She’d always considered that attaching the prefix ‘community’ to any activity was the kiss of death, and had only just stopped herself from speaking the first time Heather used the word.
‘That’s fair enough.’ The widow smiled. ‘No one’s going to force anyone to be part of the choir. There’ll be no three-line whip. It would only be for people who wanted to take part.’
‘And how would you find those people? Put ads in the Post Office window?’
‘Probably be more effective to put something in the village online newsletter.’
‘Oh?’ Carole was aware that such a thing existed, though there was no danger of her ever subscribing to it.
‘Yes, that can be very effective,’ said Jude. Typical of her not to show solidarity, thought her neighbour sniffily. ‘I’ve got quite a few clients that way.’ Something else Carole didn’t know.
‘So, what do you say, Ted?’ Heather turned her brown eyes on him appealingly, almost flirtatiously. ‘Will you let us give it a go?’
‘Well …’
‘Come on,’ said KK. ‘You know Monday nights are dead for business. If people come in for the choir, they’re going to buy drinks, aren’t they?’
‘Maybe. Things pick up, though, once you get to May and June.’
‘All right, well, just let us try once, in the next couple of weeks. See who comes along.’
Ted Crisp was on the way to being persuaded. ‘So how would it work?’
Heather took over. She and KK had clearly thought the whole thing through. ‘We’d meet early evening, half past six, seven …’
Ted looked round the bar. ‘Where?’
‘In the Function Room.’
‘And do I get paid normal rates for the use of the Function Room?’
‘No, of course you don’t,’ replied Heather, almost winsomely. ‘You let us use it for free.’
‘And why would I do that?’
‘Out of the goodness of your heart.’
‘Huh. How d’you know there’s any goodness in there?’
‘You also do it,’ said KK, ‘because of all the drinks the choir members are going to buy.’
‘Oh yeah? I’ll believe that when it happens. Anyway, what kind of music will it be? I don’t want hymns and that driving out the few customers I do get. Nothing like “O God Our Help in Ages Past” for putting a damper on an evening.’
‘It won’t be hymns,’ said Heather. ‘It’ll be more, sort of, light popular stuff.’
‘Kind of songs I play,’ KK added.
‘Bloody hell, that’s all we need!’ But Ted grinned as he said it. ‘And may I ask what your role in the proceedings will be?’
Heather provided the answer for him. ‘KK would be the choirmaster.’
‘That sounds a bit posh to me,’ the musician objected. ‘A bit po-faced and churchy. But yeah, I’d be, like, the one who leads the sessions, you know, playing the music, showing them how to do the harmonies, that stuff.’
‘Hmm …’ Ted Crisp sounded uncertain.
‘I’ve done this kind of thing before. In a pub in Brighton. Went very well.’
‘If it went very well back in Brighton, why aren’t you still doing it there?’