The Fete of Death Read online

The landlord stared menacingly at the open mouthed Mr Keane.

  "Well... I... I've no idea why she’s traumatised, I only brought her here!"

  "I need blankets. We need to get her warm. Yes, those will do."

  "Will she be okay?"

  "Oh yes, well whatever it was, it's short-circuited her nervous system but we'll sort her out and she'll be fine," said the paramedic, layering various sheets (which were actually tablecloths) over the stricken Cheryl Trellan.

  It took some time before Cheryl Trellan could form a legible sentence. What she did eventually say sent shockwaves around the pub. The landlord threw his hands up in the air and closed up for the day. He'd had more than enough drama for one day. He planned on having an early night. He was a bit odd like that, he even refused to watch the soaps. Too much drama in them, he always said. Drama gave him chronic indigestion. It also gave him a headache once his customers started on their own hard-core gossip. He often wondered if he should have taken up gardening as he'd always planned on doing instead of being a pub landlord. The local pub was always a hub for gossip and guiles. He could feel retirement brewing in his bones, even more so lately, with all the gossip going round about missing women. He'd get an allotment - the vegetables wouldn't try to bend his ear about 'what so and so's gone and done now'. He'd finally be able to hear himself think.

  He was sat up in bed in his pyjamas, even though it was only early evening, reading a gardening magazine and planning the crops he'd have on his allotment. He winced every time he heard a siren go wailing past.

  The police duly found the body of Simon Salter and his suicide note, attached when Cheryl Trellan could finally string a sentence together. They also found what was left of the pie. They didn't find Susan Smythe and they didn't find Tara Trott, the twins or Nancy Parker. All they knew was they were last seen getting into the back of a van - the same van that had apparently tried to run them over and at least one of them was injured. One of them that was missing happened to be married to a detective from Nithercott, and he was breathing down their necks for answers.

  The detective in charge of Tarndale's very busy murder squad, Bruce Haslam, had been swiftly sent to the scene - just in case. Tarndale, was in the thick of an unenviable crime wave after all, and judging by that weeks’ rising body count, it wasn't premature to assume that the missing would soon be added to the tally of the murdered.

  Simon Salter appeared to be a suicide. That made a change, in Tarndale. Not many people took their own lives in the village, because there were always plenty of people willing to do it for them, by accident or design. He was disappointed that the recent murders appeared to be solved. Murders didn't usually solve themselves in Tarndale. Most never got solved, but here was the man apparently responsible for the two murders and one accidental death and now his own death, admitting his guilt.

  Bruce Haslam, didn't like it. He wasn't keen on murderers doing his job for him and then to make matters worse, he had dished out his own punishment too. To top a bad week off, they now had more missing tourists to try to locate. The van was a possible lead but so far, no vans had been seen driving around matching that description. He could already feel it was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Twelve

  All eyes were on Tara Trott in the fading light - but her eyes were on Susan Smythe's body.

  "I know he said there's a wishing well and we could make a wish if we wanted to, but I think he was being sarcastic," said Nancy.

  "It's safe now," said Tara.

  "Are you for real? It's safer, for the time being I suppose, till the nutter comes back to kill us, but I wouldn't say it's in any way safe. Even the building isn’t safe. We could get buried under it before he gets back." said Nancy, exasperated.

  "It's okay, she's only trying to make us feel better," sniffed Sally.

  "She's not! She was talking to me!" said Susan Smythe, leaping up.

  Sally fainted. Nancy screamed. Molly couldn't believe her eyes.

  "You're alive? How?" asked Nancy.

  "He didn't kill me."

  "He thinks he did."

  "He doesn't know everything then, does he?"

  "I don't understand," said Molly in a faraway voice, urgently nudging at the unconscious Sally with her elbow.

  "I went to the tearoom and had a lovely time. The staff don't know me in there, so I could pretend to be whoever I wanted to be. I've always wanted to be an actress, you know. Oh, it was wonderful. The staff waited on me hand and foot and the other customers looked at me with respect, not like something on the bottom of their shoe like they normally do. I'd made a real effort though. I didn't want to look like me. If I looked like me, I’d have acted like me and it wouldn't have been enchanting. I was like Cinderella, for a couple of hours."

  "You look very nice and we certainly wouldn't have recognised you," agreed Tara.

  "Thanks. Anyway, I stayed at the tearoom till closing, 'cause I didn't want to leave - ever. When I did leave, I was the last to go. It was dark by then. There was a very handsome young man standing at the corner of the street. I didn't recognise him at first because in my head, he was my dazzling Prince, come to whisk me away. Well, he did whisk me away of a fashion, when he threw me into the back of his van.

  Anyway, he asked me if I knew what time it was, then we had a bit of a chit-chat and we started to walk towards the high street. Next thing I knew, he had his hands round my throat, throttling me, so I punched him on the nose. I recognised him then! I remembered the name on his badge when I saw him at the coffee shop last week. I shouted out his name and - I think that's when he must have recognised me. Then, everything went black. I came to in the van hours ago and I thought the best plan was to pretend to still be dead."

  "I'm glad you did! You've done well Susan! You've discovered who the Tarndale abductor is!" said Tara, wanting to hear the story, then get out of there.

  "Why didn't he strangle her though? He's had plenty of practice at it," said Nancy, trying to wriggle her wrists free of the ropes.

  "It must have been that scarf she's got round her neck. It must have absorbed some of the pressure from his hands, she must have only been rendered unconscious," said Tara.

  "Okay, great, she got lucky. Now what?" asked Nancy.

  Sally had finally recovered from her faint and had been filled in on the main points by Molly.

  "Sally can't go anywhere. That ankle looks broken," said Tara.

  "We're not leaving her here!" said Molly.

  "Susan’s the one that has to go for help. The police will listen to her they’ve been looking for her, she's got bruises on her neck and she knows whereabouts we are too," said Tara.

  "What about if she unties us quick, then we can all get the hell out of here. I'll give Sally a piggyback. We can’t leave her here," said Nancy, feeling increasingly claustrophobic.

  "We could do that, I suppose. I imagine Josh Matthews, will be at work for at least a couple of hours, so even though Sally will slow us down, we should still be okay," agreed Tara.

  "Why did you think it would be better for us to stay here?" asked Molly, confused.

  "It would have looked better if the police had found us here, tied up. They'd believe us for sure then."

  "Why would they not believe us?"

  "I don't know, you know what the police are like. Well, you do, don't you, being married to a detective?"

  Susan Smythe was already busy untying Sally's ropes, breaking all of her false nails in the process.

  "Now what?" asked Nancy, rubbing her wrists to get the blood circulating again.

  "We go and get help," said Tara.

  "The door’s locked! Typical that is. The whole house could fall down at any moment but that bloody door has a lock on it. In fact, that door looks like it the sturdiest part of the house and the lock looks brand new. This room must be where he keeps his victims before he kills them. None of the others managed to escape," said Nancy.

  "Oh," said Tara, kicking herself that she hadn't been
the one to mention that first. "The window! We'll climb through the window, the glass is already smashed." she said, as she bounced her way over to the window on the sponge like carpet.

  "Who in their right mind, would have dingy windows like these?"

  The only window in the room, or what was left of it, had tiny squares of thick glass, making up the large frame. It was evident that the squares of glass were far too small for any of them to fit through and there was no way of opening the window either.

  Tara looked at the twins.

  "Can you pick the lock?"

  "We're not house burglars!"

  "But you said you used to live in caravans so you could unlock them. Well? You live in a house now, so why can't you unlock house doors?"

  "It's years of handling knitting needles but wooden doors with metal dead bolts don't have the same give in them. That’s why burglars don’t tend to go through the front door," said Molly.

  "The van's still out there. He must have walked it in to work," said Nancy. “Probably he knows they’ll be out looking for the van.”

  "Hopefully the police are out looking for the van – that’s if anyone actually saw what happened," said Tara.

  "We could try to hot-wire the van and get out of here, if we can get out of here, first," said Sally.

  "You can hot-wire a car?" asked Tara.

  "I can't, but I reckon Molly could."

  "What? What kind of lives have you two lived? It's no wonder you're known troublemakers in the village, even though you’re pensioners," said Tara.

  "Known troublemakers? Whose told you that? We just get bored, that's all. It's mainly pranks we pull but they do have a way of going wrong though somehow,"

  "Never mind all of that, we've got to get out of here!" Said Nancy, her anxiety growing. She rattled the rotted window frame. "It's loose!"

  "Do you think we could push the whole frame out? I mean, how loose is it?" Asked Tara.

  "It's very loose and its crumbling too, it's so rotten. The only thing is, it'll make a right racket this glass will, when it hits the ground. If Josh Matthews is still within earshot, he'll be coming back sooner, rather than later," said Nancy, picking at the spongy frame with her fingernails.

  "It's a chance we'll just have to take," said Tara, looking round for something to lever the window frame out. "There's nothing in here we can use. How are we going to get it out? Push it with our bare hands?"

  "Yeah. If you get that side, I'll push this side. Just be careful of the broken glass, we don't want any more injuries," said Nancy, finding the best spot on the frame to push on.

  "On the count of three - 1-2-3!" Said Tara.

  The frame disintegrated, rather than it quietly dropping out in one piece. The glass hitting the concrete outside made a deafening noise, just as Nancy had predicted. The twins flinched. Everyone held their breath.

  "Susan, you go first," said Tara, giving her a leg up.

  Susan Smythe was halfway through the window when she froze.

  "He's coming back!"

  "Well? Don't come back inside! Get out! You're our only hope now! Don't let him see you!" Said Tara, pushing Susan Smythe's bottom even harder, and dodging her red pencil-thin stiletto heels.

  "I can see him running back through the trees. I don't think he can see me. I'm going girls. I'll get help," she said, tearing her dress on the way out.

  "I'm afraid we're in a bit of a pickle ladies," said Tara, not knowing what to do next.

  "I reckon we've got about two minutes to think up a plausible explanation for a missing dead body, all of us being untied and the broken window. My mind's gone blank," said Nancy.

  "Deny everything!" Said Molly.

  "I don't think that will work, do you?" asked Tara, shaking her head.

  "He's going to kill us anyway, why bother trying to explain anything? We tried to escape and didn't. Susan Smythe wasn't dead, and hopefully, she has managed to escape. Quite how she'll cope running on that loose shingle in those heels, I'll never know, but she's our only chance," said Sally.

  Josh Matthews unlocked the door to the room, surveyed the women for a few seconds whilst he got his breath back, then bellowed.

  "What the hell's going on? How did you manage to untie yourselves?" He thundered, picking up a discarded length of rope and throwing it at Tara.

  "The twins used to be magician's assistants," said Nancy.

  Josh Matthews curled his top lip up.

  "And I suppose they learned how to spirit dead bodies into thin air as well?"

  "I'm sure they were taught that levitation trick early on in their training," said Tara.

  "Don't play games with me! Where is she?"

  "She's gone," said Sally, blinking madly.

  "I can see that! How? She was dead when I left her!"

  "She felt a little claustrophobic so we tried to open the window and it fell out. She disappeared after that. We honestly don't know where she is," said Molly.

  "She's dead!" He said, wiping his face with the palm of his hand. His fringe was damp with sweat. "And you four will be too, in a few minutes!"

  "What's the rush?" Asked Nancy, stalling for time.

  "Shut up and walk out of the door in single file with your hands on your heads. We're all going to make a wish," he sneered. “If she’s gone to get help, I may as well finish what I started because I won’t ever be allowed out of jail if they do catch me.”

  "Sally can't walk," said Nancy.

  "Carry her then," he said waving the gun to motion to Nancy to pick Sally up.

  They walked as slowly as possible, especially Nancy, who had Sally on her back.

  "Are you going to shoot us?" Asked Molly, breathlessly.

  "No. Strangling's my M.O, but if you try to escape, a bullet in the back it will be. It's funny though, I've never killed twins before. I bet it'll be like déjà vu," he said, sniggering.

  The wishing well was disappointingly close to the farmhouse and even though they'd dragged their feet as much as possible to give Susan Smythe time to get help and get back to hopefully save them, but they knew they needed some more time.

  Sally slid off Nancy's back onto the ground.

  "Get up, you're not sitting down. We’ve no time for a rest, you can rest in peace as long as you like though. Tara, you can be first. You're going to wish that you never came to Tarndale!" He said, unravelling a length of thin rope and wrapping it around his hands.

  "Oh, believe me, I regretted coming here the very first hour I was here. Believe it or not, I've tried my very best to leave this place but every time I thought we were finally leaving, we got sucked back again. I for one, hate this village and I'll be glad to see the back of it," said Tara, who hoped she could stall him just a little bit longer. She might not be able to save herself, she thought, but she might be able to save the others.

  "What was that warning you said you'd got, about me when we were in the pub?"

  "The tea leaves didn't exactly show a glowing future. I saw a gun, believe it or not, danger and traps. So, another full house for the tea leaves."

  "And you still ended up here, in mortal danger, trapped, with me and my gun, despite such a clear warning?" He smirked.

  "I know, the irony of it all," replied Tara.

  "What's that noise?" He asked, whirling round.

  Sirens could be heard, racing towards them.

  "The cavalry," said Nancy, relieved.

  "About time too!" Snapped Tara.

  Josh Matthews dropped the length of rope, threw the gun down the well and ran for the trees. The first police car came into view, skidding round the corner, with Susan Smythe hanging out of the back window urging the police to go faster. An ambulance was last in the convoy of blaring vehicles with their lights flashing.

  The police set off in pursuit after Josh Matthews who thought he'd be safe once he'd reached the cover of the trees, but the police dog had other ideas and rugby tackled him to the ground with ease.

  Sally was stretchered into th
e ambulance and taken to hospital to have her leg put in a cast with her twin alongside her which left Tara and Nancy to do all of the explaining to detective Bruce Haslam, who was surprised more than anyone, that they'd all been found alive. It was a rare event in Tarndale, especially for tourists.

  "You've had a lucky escape, ladies."

  "It was pure luck, there's no kidding about it. If Susan Smythe hadn't worn that scarf...we'd be down that well now," said Tara, shivering.

  "What happens now?" Asked Nancy.

  "We lock him up and ask him lots of questions. That one-man crime wave's days of giving me a headache are over."

  "At least we managed to solve one crime. It wasn't the crime we were intending on solving, but somehow the two crimes overlapped and even though we were only on our way back to the bed-and-breakfast, we somehow got dragged into the abductions case."

  "Some people are like that. No matter where they go, events like that happen around them and they get involved in it all whether they like it or not. I'm not too keen on those kinds of people, myself. What other crime did you think you could solve?"

  "The murders at the fete," said Nancy.

  "That’s case closed too. Simon Salter admitted everything and killed himself. It was all in a note he left. Best plan for all of you is to pack up and leave in the morning. The all clear's been given on the bridge now but I suppose you could all do with a good night's rest and your friend won't be in any condition to travel home tonight. The ankle's broken by the way,"

  "I thought it was. She landed very heavily."

  "Yes, we had a witness who saw the van try to run you all over then they saw the driver put you in the back." Someone else found your phone. So, we knew who'd been involved and what had happened, just not who the driver was or where you were.."

  "My phone!" Said Nancy.

  "It's at the bed-and-breakfast. I should imagine it's got 50 missed calls off your husband on it by now. I know I have."

  "Can we go now? I could do with a cup of coffee," said Tara, suddenly feeling very tired.

  "I'll get a car to take you to the bed-and-breakfast. You've had a traumatic time of it. I'm sure you want to relax on your final night here. But, any thoughts you have of solving any murders - I'd forget them if I were you. Criminals are dangerous people to deal with. Unpredictable at best. I wouldn't want to add your names to my long list of victims. You've had your adventure ladies, now leave the dangerous work to us."