the emergency session!’
‘Is it ever?’
‘Well, I think it is, what with all the discussions about the witchcraft museum and speculating about the new vicar,’ she said, and then suddenly got a belated attack of conscience. ‘You know, I suppose we really shouldn’t be discussing Parish Council business with other people, Felix!’
‘Isn’t it a bit too late for that now? And I’m not “other people”,’ I said indignantly. ‘Haven’t we always told each other everything…or almost everything, because I suspect we all have one or two deep, dark secrets.’
‘I haven’t,’ Felix said. ‘I’m an open book.’
‘You’re a nice if slightly time-worn edition, attractively foxed,’ I said kindly. ‘And you both know I wouldn’t discuss Parish Council business with anyone else, though I’ll swear silence, if that helps?’
‘Of course we know you wouldn’t tell anyone else, don’t we, Felix? I was being silly,’ said Poppy. ‘Go on, tell Chloe what happened.’
‘OK, but not a lot did happen that I recall, except that Hebe Winter told poor Mr Merryman that he was a weak vessel who’d failed to avert a threat to all our mortal souls, or something like that.’
‘I thought he was going to cry!’ Poppy put in. ‘So I told her your grandfather wasn’t so bad, but then she said yes he was, he was the Antichrist!’
‘I think that might be going a little too far,’ I said. ‘I mean, Aleister Crowley he is not! And even if his magic practices do stray across the line sometimes, it’s never even bordering on satanic.’
Or I hoped not, anyway…No, on reflection, my guardian angel would definitely have had something to say about that!
‘Oh, no, I’m sure he’s not,’ Poppy agreed. ‘I think Miss Winter is now pinning her hopes on the new vicar taking a stronger line about it, when he finally arrives. Apparently, he intends moving into the kitchen wing of the vicarage where Mr Harris lived after he found the stairs too much, while the rest of the repairs are finished. That’s what the Minchins say, anyway. He’s keeping them on, which they’re very relieved about.’
‘Who are the Minchins?’ I asked.
‘They’re a brother and sister in their fifties, who looked after the vicarage for Mr Harris, and they have a sort of flat over the kitchen, with its own back stairs,’ she explained. ‘Salford Minchin has served time in prison for murder, so they were worried they might be out of a job.’
‘Yes, I imagine they might!’
‘It was more of an accident really, I think – Salford found his wife with another man and things got out of hand. Don’t they call that a crime passionnel in France?’
‘Yes, and I suppose if he doesn’t remarry, it’s unlikely he’ll do it again,’ I agreed.
‘Miss Winter found out that the vicar had paid a flying visit to Sticklepond last week to see how renovations were progressing, but he didn’t tell anyone except the Minchins that he was coming, so she was furious about that,’ said Felix.
‘When Effie Yatton asked Maria Minchin what he was like, all she could say was that he was younger than Mr Harris and not anything like any vicar she’d ever known,’ Poppy said, with a giggle.
‘Apart from Methuselah, it would be difficult to be older than Mr Harris,’ Felix said. ‘He looked transparent the last few years, as if he was already half gone, but he was so absent-minded towards the end that I think he just forgot to die.’
‘Maybe God finally tied a knot in his handkerchief to remind him?’ Poppy suggested. ‘He should certainly have retired years ago, but I expect it slipped the bishop’s mind.’
‘On purpose, because it was probably more convenient to forget about him and Sticklepond altogether, while he could,’ Felix agreed. ‘The new vicar must be stinking rich, because there’s a positive army of workmen all over the vicarage.’
‘And he must be kind,’ Poppy said, ‘because he’s having the Minchins’ flat repaired and redecorated first.’
‘But you still have no idea who he is?’ I asked her, because the mystery was finally starting to pique my curiosity.
‘No, the bishop hasn’t replied to any of Hebe’s letters and when she rang his secretary, she said he’d gone on holiday.’
‘I think he’s just avoiding her,’ Felix said, with his attractively lopsided grin. ‘There must be something odd about the new vicar that the bishop doesn’t want her to find out, until it’s too late.’
‘Well, whatever it is, I expect she’ll beat him into shape, just like she has with Mr Merryman, don’t you, Felix?’ Poppy asked.
‘Probably, and I feel sorry for the poor man already. Since she cornered him after his first service to make her views clear about the happy-clappy guitar-playing stuff, she’s got poor Merryman so cowed that she only has to say, “That’s the way we have always done things in Sticklepond,” and he shuts up, even if he’s proposing something totally innocuous, like taking the Sunday school children on a nature ramble round the churchyard, instead of colouring in pictures from the Bible in the vestry.’
‘But it’s Effie who runs the Sunday school, and she thought it was way too chilly for that kind of thing,’ Poppy pointed out fair-mindedly. ‘And if the new vicar is someone famous, like Cliff Richard, Miss Winter won’t really be able to browbeat him, will she? I mean, I don’t suppose he’s used to being told what to do.’
‘Poppy,’ I said patiently, ‘it isn’t going to be Cliff Richard, so don’t get your hopes up! Believe me, it’ll be some sixties one-hit-wonder pop star that no one remembers.’
Jake, having for once in his life followed my advice, had become friendly with the girl he liked at college to the point where he now picked her up in Grumps’ car every day and brought her home again.
She lived on the other side of Sticklepond in a converted barn, just next to the start of the track to Badger’s Bolt. I thought this might not turn out to be the most salubrious of addresses, if Mr Drake was who we suspected he was.
Her parents phoned me up before they would let Jake drive her anywhere, and I had to assure them that not only was he a very careful driver (which he is, really, it’s just me fussing), but also that Grumps’ ancient Saab was incapable of breaking any speed limits, except downhill with the wind behind it.
Presumably at that point they had not yet set eyes on Goth Boy, or heard all the gossip about Jake’s grandfather and the museum, because they gave their permission.
Anyway, Jake now seemed much happier, so far as I could tell through all that black hair, though I wished his taste in music would lighten up a bit. And he’d brought the girl back on the way home twice, so I could have the honour of making her real hot chocolate. Her name is Katherine, though she told me she is always called Kat, and seemed like a nice girl, so far as I could tell – she chatted away, though unfortunately very quietly and without moving her lips, so I had no idea what she was saying. I just smiled and nodded a lot.
We
