Ann Purser - Threats At Three

“One more, then,” he said. “What about Gavin Adstone?”

“The lone parishioner attending our meeting, and unsquashable? Are you serious?” John said. Gavin Adstone was one of the bright young incomers, disliked by most people for his instantly given opinions on every subject raised, and obvious contempt for the old tried and tested village ways. But Derek thought he could see good in the man. All that brash exterior covered a willing spirit, and he could see that they would sorely need such a one on the village hall project.

“Better to have him working with us than against us,” was all he said, and John reluctantly agreed. “You ask him then,” he said. “And on your own head be it.”

WHEN A SUITABLY MELLOW DEREK ARRIVED HOME, LOIS WAS waiting for him in the warm kitchen. Gran, Lois’s mother, had gone to bed with a book, and the kitchen was quiet and peaceful.

“Good meeting?” Lois said.

“Not bad,” Derek said, wondering how to break the news to her that he was now chairing the village hall project subcommittee. He need not have worried.

“So did you get the job?” she asked. When he did not answer straightaway, she added that the parish council meeting agenda was fixed to the notice board, so she knew about the project and had guessed the rest. “I thought it would be dumped in your lap,” she said. “Can’t say no, that’s your trouble.”

Derek put his arms around her shoulders and kissed the back of her neck. “Luckily for you,” he muttered into her silky hair. “When you proposed to me, I mean,” he added, and retreated quickly as she rounded on him, as expected.

GAVIN ADSTONE HAD ARRIVED IN THE VILLAGE WITH HIS wife and toddler daughter a year and a half ago, and had immediately thrown himself into village activities without realising that a more considered approach would have made him more acceptable to the small community. He had joined the playing fields committee, the darts team at the pub, offered to play cricket for Long Farnden, even considered the reading group but decided it was a lot of old fogies reading romantic novels and not for him. He worked for an IT company in Tresham, and had yet to discover that Lois Meade’s son Douglas had a senior position in the same company. He was thirty-two years old, and had the confidence and cheek of the devil. In other words, as Derek had guessed, he was perfect for the task of raising a large sum of money for the village hall.

“How was it tonight?” asked his wife, as he came into their small cottage with a blast of cold air. Gavin had gone along to the meeting out of curiosity, rather fancying the idea that at some point he wouldn’t mind being a parish councillor himself. He was told that he could not speak unless prearranged with the secretary, but this had not bothered him unduly, nor stopped his interjections, and he was not overawed by Mrs. Tollervey-Jones.

“Much as usual,” he said. “I reckon nothing’s changed for the last fifty years. Some posh old dame is in the chair. The one who lives at Farnden Hall, I think. Talk about feudalism! You should have heard her keeping the unruly peasants in order!”

“So what did they talk about? Strip farming? Poaching in the squire’s woods?”

Kate Adstone was a small, dark-haired thirty-year-old, very dry and sharp. Their daughter Cecilia took all her time at the moment, but she intended to return to her job as a family mediator in due course.

“No, it was mostly about the proposed centenary celebrations for the crumbling village hall. We’ve talked about it in the pub, as you know, and I am all for bulldozing the old shed down and bringing the village up into the twenty-first century.”

“So what happened?”

“They had a vote. Restoring the old shed won by one vote. So that’s what they’re going to do. Big effort planned to fund-raise enough money to do the job. What a waste! The whole place will fall down in another ten years anyway.”

Kate laughed. “They need you, Gavin,” she said, and added to herself that Gavin needed them, too. Since they had moved here-a mistake, in her opinion-he had been like a caged tiger. He had boundless energy, was good at getting things done, and could strong-arm his way into and out of any situation. Perhaps she should have a word with somebody. Put his name forwards?

A preliminary little cry from upstairs brought them both to their feet. Cecilia was their first child, and neither had any previous experience of handling toddlers. So they crept upstairs to see if she was even a little bit unhappy. They peered into her cot, and she opened her eyes, saw their anxious faces, and opened her tiny mouth to give a surprisingly loud bellow.

TONY DIBSON HAD ENJOYED HIS PINT OF BEST IN THE CORNER OF the bar beside a roaring log fire. The ritual of the council meeting, followed by a pint in the pub and a game of dominoes with his good friend Fred Smith, had played its part in his village routine for years. At each council election, he allowed his name to be put forwards, and he always commanded a sizable vote. This year, however, he had only just scraped in by a few votes. Time to go, he told himself. Too many new people in the village, and he was too old to fight for what he believed was good for the community. Not that he had ever thought about it in those terms. Being on the parish council was something he’d always done, and his father before him, and he had known instinctively what most of the villagers would want. Not anymore though, he thought, as he put his last tile triumphantly on the table.

Then Derek Meade and John Thornbull had come over, and asked him to be on the subcommittee to organise fund-raising for repairing the old village hall. It wouldn’t be the first time it had been repaired. He remembered over the last forty odd years many occasions when the roof had leaked, the plumbing seized up, when windows had been broken by vandals, and the kitchen tap had been left running and flooded the whole place. Money had been found to cope with these, and there was always a generous donation from her up at the hall.

Now they were planning a big renovation, Derek Meade had said, to celebrate the old building’s hundredth birthday. Well, good on them, he thought. That hall had been part of village life for generations. Wedding receptions, christening parties, WI meetings, concerts of local talent, and a hundred other uses marking high points in the lives of village families.

In due course, Tony walked slowly down the street to his home in the row of cottages on the corner where the High Street met Church Lane. He could have found his way with his eyes shut, without slipping or tripping.

He had told Derek he would think about it. As he unlocked and opened his front door, his wife sat as always in her chair by the window, although it was dark and she couldn’t have seen anything outside, even supposing she still had her sight. She turned her head towards him with her usual sweet smile. Now disabled by arthritis and various ailments the social worker called “age related,” she relied on Tony for almost everything. He didn’t mind. He would do anything to keep her from going into one of those places where he knew the heart would go out of his beloved Irene.

“Any news?” she asked. It was always her first question, even if he had only been to the shop and had a chat with shopkeeper Josie Meade, daughter of Derek and Lois.

He took off his coat and told her about the village hall. “And Derek Meade wants me to help fund-raise,” he added. “Be on some committee or other. They need my experience of village needs, but I reckon I don’t have time for all that rubbish.”