Country Pursuits Read online

  On the evening, Caro was waiting for Sebastian to come home, hovering in the kitchen, hands curled round a chilled glass of Pinot Grigio. She was wearing a new black dress from Amanda Wakeley in Cirencester. She had been thrilled to find she could fit in a size twelve. Caro hadn’t been consciously dieting, but she had found herself picking at her meals recently. Her ebbing lust for life had affected her appetite, too. She might be bored, lonely and miserable, but at least she was losing weight, she thought ruefully. Caro twirled around and looked at her reflection on the cooker window. And she was looking forward to tonight. Tilly and Tobes were a giggle, and it would be nice to have a few glasses of bubbly and let her hair down.

  Her phone beeped. A text from Sebastian popped up. ‘Train is crawling, will be late. Have U ironed my dark blue Turnbull & Asser shirt?’ Caro took another glug of wine, hoping they wouldn’t lose their table.

  Meanwhile, Harriet and her party were arriving at the pub. Beryl and Stacey had done a marvellous job of decorating: blue, white and red flags hung everywhere alongside strategically placed garlands of garlic. A covered marquee had been set up in the back garden with even more tables, so they could seat a larger number of diners. The staff were all dressed in cute berets and striped blue and white T-shirts. Sniffer and Horse nearly fell over when they saw Stacey, her chest straining like a pair of wriggling puppies trying to get off the leash.

  The place was packed. The front bar had been commandeered for diners as well, and every table was full of people chattering, pulling their bread baskets apart and drinking red wine. Chirpy young waiting staff rushed around to accommodate them, while delicious smells floated out of the kitchen.

  Harriet took a seat next to the wall, and then pulled Camilla in next to her. To her relief, Calypso sat down opposite as well. Angus was most put out. ‘I say, what happened to boy girl, boy girl?’ he complained.

  ‘Not tonight, darling, us girls have got lots to catch up on,’ said Camilla quickly.

  ‘Yah, at least we get a good view of that bird’s massive hooters!’ announced Sniffer, taking his seat at the end of the table. Camilla cringed and hoped Jack Turner wasn’t in earshot.

  Across the green, Sebastian had finally arrived home.

  ‘Do you like my new dress?’ asked Caro hopefully, as she watched him get ready.

  He looked up from tying his shoelaces. ‘It’s all right. A bit frumpy. At least it covers all your lumps up.’

  Caro had an insane urge to boot her husband in the shin with her LK Bennett kitten heel. Finally they left the house, Caro trying to hold on to her husband’s arm as he strode across the grass with no thought for her suede shoes. At the door of the pub, Sebastian stopped and smiled at her. He reminded Caro of a wolf baring its teeth. ‘After you, dear,’ he said, and swung the door open.

  They were hit by a wall of warmth, noise and heady smells. ‘At bloody last!’ a male voice shouted out, followed by a woman’s cut-glass tones. ‘We’d just about given up on you!’

  Caro and Sebastian swung round. ‘Guys! Sorry we’re late,’ said Caro, going over and kissing the woman on both cheeks.

  ‘Seb taking too long in the bathroom again?’

  ‘Fuck off, Tobey,’ said Sebastian, grinning. He turned to the woman, who at five foot four and barely eight stone, looked adorable in a tight black waistcoat and trousers. ‘Tils, you look as radiant as always. Can’t you take Caro shopping with you? She’s dressing like her bloody grandmother these days.’

  ‘Ignore him, darling,’ said Tilly, smiling at her friend over Sebastian’s shoulder.

  For once Caro did. She was here to have a jolly good time with her friends, and to hell with what Sebastian said to her.

  ‘Glass of bubbly?’ Tobey asked her, holding a bottle of Moët aloft.

  Caro picked up one of the flutes from the table. ‘Rather!’

  Over on Camilla’s table, the three girls were having an earnest discussion about the ball. Calypso had even brought her hit list of people and press she wanted to get. ‘So obviously I must try to get the Goldsmiths. Zac should be a deffo for sure because he’s like, a totally massive environmentalist, and this should be just the kind of thing he’d support. If I can get him there maybe I can get his sister Jemima Khan as well, and you know Kate Moss has a weekend cottage, like, round here . . . then there’s Stella and, ooh, they might bring Madonna!’ She flicked efficiently through the pages on her clipboard. ‘As far as press goes, you know my friend Octavia? Well, her sister is a freelance journalist and totally well connected and she said she’ll, like, try and write something. And Octavia has a dad who is on the board at Condé Nast, which publishes Tatler, so I am sure we can pull a few strings there.’

  The two others looked at her in admiration. ‘Muffin, you have done a marvellous job,’ said Camilla. She had been secretly delighted at the way her younger sister was throwing herself into the ball. It seemed to be giving her a much-needed purpose in life.

  Calypso scowled. ‘Don’t call me that! It’s events organizer extraordinaire.’ A smile spread across her face, and she laughed, Harriet and Camilla joining in.

  ‘What are you fillies tittering at?’ boomed Angus, turning away from a conversation with his two friends about how much a healthy pair of bull’s testicles should weigh.

  ‘Who’s got their tits out?’ asked Sniffer, and he and Horse burst into guffaws. Calypso rolled her eyes. ‘Oh please! We’re not in the playground now, boys.’

  Horse shot Harriet a lascivious glance. ‘Sorry ladies! I must apologize for old Sniff Dog’s revolting manners, we normally leave him tied up outside, you know.’ Angus chortled and summoned Stacey over to get them another bottle of champagne.

  ‘A bottle of your best bubbly, please!’ he hollered. As Stacey turned to go to the bar, Sniffer made silent ‘honk honk’ movements with his hands. The three men collapsed, eyes watering with tears as they slapped each other on the back.

  Calypso looked at her sister in pity. ‘Honestly Bills, what do you see in him?’ she whispered. Camilla had to admit that, at that precise moment in time, she had absolutely no idea.

  Pierre had really pulled the stops out with the menu. There was foie gras to start, followed by organic orgasmic French soup, the top oozing with delicious cheese and crusty toasted croutons. Then huge bowls of moules à la provençale were carried out, the smell of garlic and fresh tomatoes filling the pub, and after that, an utterly delicious boeuf bourguignon with a creamy potato gratin and crisp green beans.

  ‘God, this is delicious!’ exclaimed Tilly, forking up another slice of succulent beef. Caro enviously eyed the waiflike woman, who had finished both her soup and moules and was now attacking her main course with gusto.

  ‘Honestly Tills, where do you put it?’ she smiled through a mouthful.

  ‘It’s the shagging!’ said Tobey. ‘Like a dog on heat, I tell you.’ Tilly nudged her husband in mock-annoyance.

  ‘I am not! Take that back Tobey Sedgewick-Lough-Ainswick-Fotherington!’

  ‘Help, I surrender,’ said Tobey, shooting a smirk over the table at Caro.

  Caro was, in fact, trying to dodge Tobey’s knee, which had been pressed firmly against hers for the last hour. At first, she had put it down to the fact they were all squeezed in round a rather small table, but when a hand had suddenly reached across and squeezed her knee, she had known she wasn’t imagining things.

  For dessert, Pierre had conjured up a crisp tarte Tatin accompanied by an exquisite crème anglaise, but by that time most of the guests were too drunk to appreciate it. One of the Fox-Titts’ party was stretched out comatose on top of the table. The rest of his dining companions were resting their drinks on him, and carrying on as though it was completely normal to have a six foot two, sixteen stone unconscious man sprawled in their midst. Lucinda Reinard had come back from the toilet with her skirt tucked into her knickers, and everyone had been laughing too much to point it out, until Beryl Turner had taken pity and come out from behind the bar to tell her.<
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  Caro had just had her umpteenth glass of Chablis when the room suddenly started spinning. She thought she might be sick, so leaving Seb regaling Tobey and Tilly with a scandalous sex story about some big shot in the city, she quietly excused herself from the table. The queue for the ladies was a mile long, leaving Caro no choice but to make her way unsteadily outside.

  The fresh night air hit her, and she gratefully sucked it up. Spying the bench on the village green, she wove across the lane and plonked herself down on it. Her head was still turning like a merry-go-round, and in the clear sky the stars were moving about like a giant kaleidoscope.

  ‘Are you feeling OK, darling?’ Tobey was standing in front of her, holding his blazer out. ‘Look, I brought this in case you get cold.’ He sat down beside her.

  ‘Tobes, thank you,’ said Caro, as he put the blazer round her shoulders, leaving one arm draped around her. ‘I’m fine, just a bit too much to drink. Since I had Milo, my tolerance levels seem to have shot down.’ She tried to ignore Tobey’s hand, which was creeping over her shoulder like some randy, sex-starved bit of ivy.

  ‘Mmm, yah, I completely understand,’ said Tobey abstractedly. Suddenly, his hand found her nipple and squeezed it firmly.

  ‘Tobey! What do you think you’re doing!’ exclaimed Caro, and tried to push him off. But by this time he’d slipped his hand inside her dress, his fingers groping the soft flesh of her right bosom.

  ‘Oh come on, darling! You and me, we’ve always had a thing, haven’t we?’ He was slurring and Caro realized he was more drunk than she was.

  ‘No, we haven’t!’ she cried. ‘Now get off me!’

  Before she knew it, Tobey was being dragged off her and thrown a good few feet over the ground. ‘Argh!’ he yelled, landing in a heap. Caro looked up to see Benedict Towey standing over him, breathing slightly heavily. Tobey remained on the floor, groaning.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ she yelled at Benedict, forgetting she had vowed never to speak to him again. ‘He’s a bloody friend of ours!’

  ‘Looked like more than that,’ replied Benedict archly.

  Caro watched him warily from the bench, trying to collect herself. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.

  ‘Taking a walk. Look, sorry if I intruded, but it looked like he was getting a bit tricky. I would have thought any sane woman would have appreciated someone stepping in.’

  ‘What, were you spying on us?’ said Caro, trying to stand up.

  Benedict Towey looked at her in utter disgust. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said, and stalked off.

  Desperately trying to sober up, Caro went over to Tobey, who was still lying prostrate on the ground. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

  ‘Bloody shoulder is killing me,’ he mumbled. ‘Sorry if I got a bit heavy with you, old girl, plonk does give one the horn, you know.’

  Caro sighed. ‘It’s fine, really, Tobey. Come on, let’s get you back inside.’ She pulled him up and they staggered back towards the pub.

  Inside, someone had put Queen on the juke box and ‘We Will Rock You’ boomed throughout the pub. Two gorgeous young blondes were dancing on one of the tables, while Horse, Sniffer and Angus downed shots of flaming sambucas at the bar, guffawing hysterically as they rammed lemon slices into each other’s eyes. Pierre had given up on the cheese course and gone home.

  Camilla was busting for a pee. The queue for the ladies hadn’t got any shorter, so she went in search of another loo. There was a door marked ‘Private’, which obviously led to the Turners’ private accommodation. Camilla knew that she shouldn’t, but she was so desperate she pushed through the door and up the stairs. Bladder full to bursting, she came to another, wider corridor with rooms leading off it. At the end of the corridor, a door was ajar and Camilla could see it was the bathroom. She was hurrying along to it when a sound from one of the rooms made her glance in. She stopped short.

  Jed Bantry was standing there, pants and jeans around his ankles while Stacey Turner, naked as the day she was born, had her legs wrapped round his waist. Her back was against the wall and her eyes were closed in ecstasy as he drove into her. Suddenly, as if aware of another presence, she opened one eye, and seeing Camilla there, screamed. ‘What are you doing up here!’

  Camilla covered her mouth with shock. ‘Oh my God! I only came to find a loo to use, I really am terribly sorry . . .’ Jed, far from being ruffled, just stared at Camilla with a look she couldn’t quite place.

  ‘It’s along the corridor, yeah?’ said Stacey crossly. ‘Just don’t tell Mum and Dad you saw us, OK?’ Camilla felt rooted to the spot with embarrassment. Stacey gave her an incredulous look: ‘Can you go now?’

  Camilla jolted out of it. ‘Of course. Look guys, I am so sorry . . .’ The door swung shut as Stacey kicked it with her foot, leaving Camilla dying of mortification.

  When her cheeks had calmed down and she eventually arrived back downstairs, the place was in uproar. ‘CAMILLA!’ yelled Calypso as soon as she saw her. ‘Sniffer and Horse are having a punch-up in the car park!’ They both rushed out, along with the rest of the pub. By that time, Sniffer, with a streaming bloody nose, was on top of Horse, beating him round the head with his own Timberland loafer.

  ‘I do not shag my bloody mother, so take that back, you bloody arse!’ he roared.

  ‘Fuck off!’ shouted Horse in-between the blows that rained down on him. ‘That’s what she told me when I had her this morning! Ow!’

  Camilla turned to Angus. ‘Do something!’

  Jack Turner was there first. ‘All right you two, break it up!’ he shouted, pulling them apart. Sniffer staggered back and, loafer still in hand, ran off into the night. The wail of sirens could be heard in the background. Someone had called the police. ‘Merde!’ groaned Jack, and stalked back into the pub.

  Detective Inspector Kevin Rance was not amused. He had been looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the box at Bedlington police station when the call had come out on the radio. ‘Two IC1 males engaged in a fight, one armed with an unknown weapon. Outside the Jolly Boot in Churchminster. Crowds gathering. Can we have a unit to deal?’

  ‘Bloody Hooray Henrys,’ grumbled DI Rance to the panda car’s driver PC Penny. ‘They’ve probably got in a dust-up over who finished the last of the Bolly.’

  ‘Or it could be something really serious, Guv!’ squeaked PC Penny. Paul Penny, pink-cheeked and sandy-haired, had been fresh out of police training college six months earlier. He had all the youthful enthusiasm and blissful ignorance DI Rance vaguely recalled from when he had joined the force twenty years ago. Rance gave him two years before it was knocked out of him.

  ‘I doubt it, Penny,’ he said as the car pulled into the car park, sirens still wailing. Rance turned to look at his young cohort. ‘I think you can turn those off now,’ he said drily. He’d only let Penny turn them on on the condition he went to buy biscuits once they’d got back to the police station.

  Rance entered the Jolly Boot, pausing on the doorstep to take the room in. It was past 2 a.m. by now, and most of the diners had gone home. Camilla and Angus were sitting at a table with Horse, whose right eye was bloody and swollen. DI Rance drew himself up to his full height and addressed the room. ‘Can anyone tell me what has been going on here?’

  Angus stood up. ‘Look here, officer, it’s just a fight that got out of hand. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that, son,’ said Rance. He looked at Horse, who was holding a sodden bar towel against his head. ‘Looks like we should start with you.’

  After the full sorry story – ‘I only said he porked his old mater for a laugh!’ – Rance sent PC Penny out to look for the weapon. He came back fifteen minutes later, triumphantly holding the loafer in a clear evidence bag. He’d found it in someone’s front garden, and the owner was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘I really don’t want to press charges,’ Horse insisted. ‘The Sniffster would never forgive me. Besides, he didn’t complain when I set fire
to his pubes at Henley last year. I need to return the favour.’

  ‘We don’t want any trouble here, bad for business,’ added Jack Turner, who was busy wiping down tables.

  Rance let out a disgruntled sigh. What a bloody waste of time. ‘Penny, we’ll leave these people to the rest of their evening.’ He waited until the young PC had opened the door for him. ‘Let’s stop at the twenty-four-hour garage on the way back, eh? I quite fancy some of those choc-chip Boasters.’

  Chapter 26

  THE FRENCH EVENING raised a staggering twenty thousand pounds. ‘Jack, that’s wonderful!’ Clementine exclaimed when he dropped the takings round for her to put in the fund. The committee had opened an account with the private bank in Bedlington.

  ‘Only another fourteen million, nine hundred and eighty thousand or so to go,’ said Jack gloomily.

  ‘Oh nonsense, it’s a good start!’ said Clementine. ‘I’ll bank this later. Now, what’s this about a dust-up? Camilla’s terribly upset Angus’s friends were involved . . .’

  That afternoon, Clementine was driving up the Bedlington Road in her ancient Volvo estate, Errol Flynn sitting with his head hanging out of the passenger window, when the Revd Goody suddenly appeared outside the rectory and flagged her down.

  ‘Everything all right, Reverend?’ asked Clementine, when he’d trotted up to her window. She looked at him. ‘My dear man, what’s wrong?’ The Reverend looked pale and clammy, as though he’d just had a nasty shock.

  ‘I was down at the church this morning,’ he started, ‘when some people came in. I told them there wasn’t a service today but they just stood there.’ He gulped. ‘That’s when I recognized him.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Clementine.

  ‘Sid Sykes!’ replied the Reverend. His mouth trembled. ‘Not a nice man, is he? He had two awfully menacing chaps with him, as well.’

  ‘Reverend, did he threaten you?’ asked Clementine quietly.

  ‘No! I mean, not as such.’ The Revd Goody smiled weakly. ‘He wanted to know if I could slip a couple of lines into my sermon about what a good idea the housing estate would be for the village. Something about growth and prosperity as I recall . . . Anyway, he said he would make it worth my while financially.’