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The first in the Bretherton village mysteries

Taster!
A village mystery! Emma Brigham has not been seen for sometime. Some believe she has been the victim of a dreadful murder and the St Bretherton ladies choir are convinced that they know the perpetrator! 3500 words previously unpublished.
* * *
The story
“She’s dead, dead and buried, and he done her in!” If Audrey Parsons was speaking out of turn on that summer evening, then she was only voicing what everybody thought.
Mr Paul Brigham had bought a small holding in the village just before Christmas. Mrs Brigham and the two children moved in at New Year and the whole village was buzzing with talk of the new family as winter gave way to springtime. New blood is always to be celebrated in a small community and the arrival of the Brighams seemed to presage the green shoots of the coming spring still sleeping in the soil.

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Audrey Parsons was the primary source of information in the village of Bretherton. Not so much as a cold went round without Audrey’s knowledge. The children in the village would chant “If anyone knows then Parsons nose,” but the adults would gladly incline an ear as she held forth over a glass of stout ale, in the hope that they might glean some welcome snippet of truth or fable.
* * *
It was March when the first hint of trouble at the Brighams’ began to stir among the ladies who meet for tea and a toasted teacake in the “Jenny Lind” cafe.
Mrs Brigham hadn’t been seen for a while and Audrey’s spies had been hard at work. Audrey Parsons’ eyes glowed that chilly afternoon as gloomy daylight faded to darkness……
She held court. “So, anyway, I was in the post office in Bolsingham high street yesterday with old Mrs Ellis who does flowers in the church over there.
We often chat while we’re queueing; she says that the counter staff are told to take their time so the government doesn’t have to pay out so much pension money. Well, she told me that her daughter Julie; you know Julie? Tall girl, dreadful posture, married to Ken in the dry cleaners; Well she works in the office at St Benedict’s school.
Now according to Mrs Ellis, our Mr B turned up at the school with the children last week. The very day after the last time anyone saw his wife.
‘Said that in future he would be collecting the children from school.
He said the family circumstances had changed and that he was looking after the kids on his own! Well, Julie tried to get him to explain what was going on but he just repeated that he would be collecting the kiddies and then he left, cool as a cucumber!” Audrey stretched her mouth into a knowing smile and leant back in her chair allowing the gravity of her statement to sink in.
Edna Griffin, now retired from a life’s work as a librarian, regarded herself as Audrey’s first lieutenant. She raised her hand and Audrey nodded to indicate that she might speak; “I saw him with the kids this afternoon, about ten to four it must have been. I was just giving Tigger his afternoon walkies, beautifully turned out in their school uniforms I must say.”
As Edna finished speaking a soft hum of shared opinions passed among the courtiers gathered in the little café, for if information was the fuel for the excitement that afternoon then speculation was its engine.
What could this change in circumstances signify?
An infidelity perhaps?
Had she left the family home for the arms of a lover?
Had Paul Brigham driven his wife from the house in fury?
As the last of the crockery was cleared at the “Jenny Lind” the data gathering machinery upon which village life thrived was primed, tuned to perfection and ready to race. Seven souls left the café into the early evening with just one purpose in mind.
To find out what had become of Emma Brigham!
* * *
Easter came and went with no further developments and as the first blossoms began to burst on the cherry trees, Audrey was beginning to lose heart. Then came the break through!
Spring time had continued dark wet and very windy and by late April both man and beast longed to feel the sun on their backs.
Audrey was seated alone by the fire in the bar at the Bretherton arms. It was unusually quiet, the unseasonable weather having kept many of the regulars at home. The door opened to a blast of the rain drenched gale, as a woman draped head to foot in oilskin raincoat all but fell across the threshold. Audrey moved quickly to support the swaying figure.
“Polly, Polly, what’s the matter dear, you’re as white as a sheet, sit down, sit down. Tom, get Polly a brandy!”
Tom, the landlord, bought a large brandy to Audrey’s table by the fire and the woman drank it in one. Slowly her composure returned.
“Oh, Audrey” she began “I have just had such a fright”; Polly Abbott was the Bretherton village conscience taking on personal responsibility for every guilt, every duty, and every chore which no one else wanted. Had it been possible, she would have taken upon herself the very sins of its population, but instead she found some solace in community service and a never ending round of charity collections.
The last two weeks in April were designated for badgers welfare and Polly would tour the streets every evening, knocking on doors and exhorting householders to contribute to her “badger bank”. To a soul the villagers indulged Polly in her charity work and none would be so churlish as even to observe that the “badger bank” which she proffered at every door was in fact a traditional piggy bank, reassigned as a badger by the application of black nail varnish and white correcting fluid to the snout, but tonight Polly Abbott knew that she had faced evil incarnate. Her innocent request for a small contribution had delivered her into the presence of death!
It had taken all her courage for Polly to approach the Brigham house. The small holding was set at the very edge of the village beyond the sycamore grove where the rooks roosted noisily in the upper branches and was itself badly overgrown having suffered years of neglect by a string of disinterested owners. Paul Brigham had made a promising start in the early days, but nothing very much had been done for weeks and the weeds were moving now, reaching for the sun as the days lengthened. The sound of her timid rap on the peeling paint of the door had seemed to resound through the house beyond. Polly took a step back. At once a strong male voice spoke almost at her shoulder “Yes, can I help you?” and Polly felt that unique physical pain which extreme surprise generates in the body.
It was Paul Brigham, filthy from the field, clutching a small garden trowel in one hand and a tray of bedding plants in the other. Polly considered her options. The monster was armed with cold steel, could she run? Certainly a garden trowel was a viable murder weapon, but did a converted piggy bank offer any degree of defence? She remained, petrified and mute, the only vital signs being the involuntary opening and closing of her mouth and a tremor in her limbs which set the few coppers in her collection rattling.
Paul Brigham saw the badger bank clutched to Polly’s breast. “Oh, badgers is it? Well, we must look after our stripy faced friends” and, placing the bedding plants on the ground he reached into the pocket of his overalls and drew out a five pound note which he pushed into the slot in the chimera’s back. Polly Abbott collected pennies for her many charities and the sight of a fiver going into the comical bank only enhanced her sense of terror. Just as an air of wealthy sophistication can make a movie bad guy seem really evil. So it was that this largesse turned a frightening image into a truly demonic vision.
Paul Brigham leant his face a little towards Polly. “Now, if you will excuse me!”
He bent to retrieve the bedding plants and retreated into the darkness at the edge of the garden.
As vitality returned to Polly’s traumatised limbs she ran to the gate at the edge of the holding and, raising the latch she heard him call out. “Very good at digging you know, badgers, oh yes, very good at digging” followed by a little, humourless laugh. The sound of that metal trowel in stony soil pursued Polly down the lane through the sycamore grove and all the way to the feeble street lamp on the green.
Audrey received Polly’s story in silence, an unholy blend of horror and glee growing as the tale unfolded, and by the following afternoon subsequent retellings had Paul Brigham as the personification of all evil from Eden’s serpent to Jack the ripper, a dangerous and unstable threat to every living soul in the village.
* * *
The cartilage in Charlie Cotter’s knee had never recovered from the second world war. Not, as might be assumed, from some wound received in mortal combat nor even as a consequence of the one stray bomb which fell locally. Charlie was a lad of fourteen in the June of 1944 when a cricket ball delivered by an oaf from the Strepton village team brought him down. All these years on he would sometimes smile at the memory, the pain had been excruciating, but still he had finished the over. His team chaired him from the square that day, but it was VE day before he walked without the aid of crutches and now in his old age the shattered remnants needed the regular attention of Dr Crobus and a constant supply of pain killers.
It was now late May, warm by day and fragrant by night. Leaving the medical centre Charlie Cotter leaned heavily on his stick and set course for his little cottage. Seeing Edna Griffin choosing a chop for Tigger’s tea from the display in the butchers window Charlie called, and in a surprising turn of speed he all but skipped across the road to her side.
“You ‘n’ Audrey still investigatin’ the new comer then?” Edna’s instant attention provided affirmation and Charlie needed no further encouragement to relate his tale.
The old man’s route between his cottage and the village takes him along the lane past the Brigham small holding, and, for all his discomfort, he would always show a cheerful face to the world. Seeing Paul Brigham hard at work on his knees tending new bedding plants on a raised flower bed just inside the hedge, Charlie had hailed the younger man. “G’mornin’ nice day for a bit o’ gardnin’”, but the cheery smile fell from Charlie’s mouth as he saw that Mr Brigham was crying, tears streaming over his unshaven face and his whole body rocking with each deep sob.
“I didn’t know which way to look, so I put me head down and walked on an’ I tell you this, I could still hear him blubbin’ when I turned the corner into the Highstreet.”
When Audrey Parson’s received Charlie’s tale, only a little embellished by Edna exercising her ambitions to write crime novels, she was triumphant.
“That man is riven” she declared “Riven with guilt, tormented by the terrible crime which he has committed, crushed by the burden of his iniquity, his immortal soul stained beyond redemption, he might well fall on his knees to pray for his forgiveness.”
Edna, deeply impressed by her friend’s eloquence, memorised this speech for future use.
* * *
Oh, yes, the ladies of the village were of one mind, Paul Brigham was a cruel and heartless villain and the sudden disappearance of Mrs B was the consequence of nothing less than her murder at the hands of the brute. But, what next? A meeting was hastily assembled in the church hall that evening after choir practice. All of the “Jenny Lind” ladies were in attendance, the choir, having been established long ago as the “military wing” of the Bretherton gossip machine.
Margaret Richardson spoke for a faction of young hotheads in the group calling for action. “I say we call the police, then we go up to the Brigham place and drag him out. It’ll take the filth (Margaret has a penchance for London crime dramas and their associated phrases) twenty minutes to get here from Bolsingham nick and that’s enough time for us to get Brigham trussed up in the old stocks on the green. I’ve got fifty gallons of cattle slurry on the tractor and a sack of feathers left over from the turkey pluck in the hen house. We could teach him a lesson Bretherton style, then let the law take its course!”
The assembly exploded in support of Margaret’s proposal and might very well have left in pursuit of the plan there and then, had they not been instantly silenced by the ear splitting din of a chord of D minor played, both hands and foot pedals on the chamber organ in the corner. Audrey Parsons raised her hands dramatically from both manuals and the cacophony died. She turned around on the organ bench to face the crowd. “I do apologise everyone, but I couldn’t allow you to leave on a fool’s errand”. Audrey Parson’s was the younger daughter of the late sir Archibald Parsons QC and, ‘though her full life had not included a career in law she fancied that she knew how criminal justice worked and how things should be said. “Ladies, I put it to you” she began, “While we and any reasonable, objective observer would recognise in Paul Brigham the visage of a criminal, indeed a murderer! Still, the evidence in support of our case is nothing more than circumstantial. Any worthy defence lawyer will dismantle our arguments and without either a body or a murder weapon, this monster, this abomination in our midst will go free.” Audrey paused and smiled, her face now relaxed but glowing with determination. She appeared as some predatory beast when the quarry is scented, but not yet in sight. “My friends, go home now, and in the morning listen, question, take note of every little happening. The proof is there for us to find! We’ll here meet after choir on Friday!”
* * *
Mrs Ellis made a special trip from Bolsingham on the Tuesday bus to report that the young Brigham lad had developed chicken pox. The child had been taken unwell at school and his teacher, Miss Sullivan, already a local celebrity for her skills with a macramé needle, had taken him home in her ancient 2CV. Julie had quizzed the young teacher upon her return and it emerged that the inside of the Brigham property was suspiciously clean. Mrs Ellis conveyed every detail of Julie’s report. “Mrs Parsons, as I stand before you now, my Julie swears that there is not a speck of dust to be seen and that every surface is newly painted, or at least, that’s what she was told in strictest confidence by Miss Sullivan.”
Audrey mused on this conundrum for a moment . “So” she considered “He’s not leaving anything to chance is he? Nothing for the SOCO boys to work on!” The sound of the telephone broke her reverie. It was Edna.
“Audrey, Oh Audrey, there’s a public notice on the green, it says that Paul Brigham has applied to erect greenhouses on the small holding. He’ll be laying concrete foundations, and once that’s down poor Emma will never be found and he will have got away with murder!” As always Audrey was resolute. An extraordinary choir practice was called that evening and members were instructed to dress for night time camouflage. Light digging equipment was to be deriguer.
* * *
The Early summer night was still, with only the thinnest sliver of a new moon low in the sky. A nightingale sang in the sycamore grove and little bats were diving on moths over the village pond.
Discrete access to the Brigham holding from the church was achieved after dark using the hedgerow as a tortuous highway and soon the choir was assembled, a little scratched and bruised, around the flowerbed which had been the focus of so much of Mr B’s efforts.
Audrey was grim “Ladies” she began “we are about to undertake a truly horrendous task in the interests of truth and justice, if anyone would like to withdraw you may do so now with honour.” A dull thud proclaimed Polly Abbott’s faint, Margaret Richardson cursed, then applied the muddied toe of her Wellington to Polly’s ribcage in an attempt to rouse her. Two choristers dragged Polly from the scene and sat her on a fallen tree trunk nearby.
Audrey looked each of the remaining women in the eye finishing with Edna. “Then let us begin.”
She raised her garden fork above her head and in that instant the entire garden was flooded with light. Glorious, heavenly light. The kind that seems to expose every hidden thing. With another dull thud Polly fell senseless from her perch on the fallen log. Edna inexplicably fell to her knees and launched into the first verse of “nearer my God to thee”. Audrey froze, the fork above her head, her eyes wide and unblinking and as one, the ladies of the Bretherton choir, with the sole exception of the still swooning Polly, were transfixed by the scene before them.
The security lights around the front door had responded as they should, not, however, to the activities of the choir in the flowerbed, but rather to the arrival of a London taxi cab crunching over the gravel as it turned in from the lane. Cabs are a rare sight in rural Bretherton. Ask any villager and they’ll tell you a cab is black, so this vehicle sporting a modern metropolitan polished white and purple livery might have been a celestial chariot.
As the cab drew to a halt, the front door to the cottage flew open and Paul Brigham, his face ablaze with joy and moist with tears emerged followed by the children dressed for bed, protected by thick, fleecy dressing gowns and beaming.
* * *
The headlamps from the cab now further illuminated the choir still transfixed in the bedding plants, but the Brigham’s had no eyes for them. The rear door of the cab opened and Paul Brigham reached deep into the vehicle. With a tenderness which belied his rough visage and heavy frame Paul eased his wife from the rear seat.
The young woman was clearly frail, she transferred her weight to her feet cautiously as she stood and her bearing and the scarf which bound her head, previously a mane of wavy red hair, spoke of recent and radical medical treatment.
Emma and Paul Brigham clung to each other, the children hugging their legs as all four rocked in grateful, tearful, joyful mirth. This woman had indeed faced death, but it was fickle fortune that would have claimed her life and the surgeons’s skill and her family’s love which had saved her.

“What’s that daddy?” the little girl tugged at her father’s sleeve pointing to the spectral assembly amongst the flowers. Paul Brigham peered into the floodlit scene as though a better look might make some sense of what he saw. He took three paces towards the group and raised his arms wide and high in welcome, “You wonderful, wonderful people, you dear, dear friends. You knew all along didn’t you.” He beckoned the children forward and they carefully led their mother. The cab driver stepped from the drivers seat and removed his cap, running his hand through his hair. The choir, now utterly bemused, looked around.
Paul Brigham had worked hard to prepare the flowerbed where they stood and, having been interrupted, Audrey had scarcely disrupted his efforts. Royal blue Lobelia, golden marigolds and petunias in boldest carmine spelt out the words for all to see “Welcome home we love you”
Paul was nodding and smiling.
“You knew all along and now this, you are truly the finest neighbours we could have hoped to find”. He leant down to speak with the children. “Do you see what the ladies have done children? It’s called a tableau! You see, today is St Bretherton’s eve and in the old days the villagers would go round the farms acting plays and telling stories and the farmers gave them cakes and beer. Can you see Miss Abbott lying on the ground, well she’s pretending to be a horrible dragon.”
Polly stirred and was quickly silenced again with a sharp blow from Margaret Richardson’s boot. “And Mrs Parsons holding the fork is St George and she’s just killed the dragon, and, and……..and all the other ladies are erm……..”
Emma Brigham spoke quietly but strongly. “The other ladies are angels my darlings. Angels who have come to watch and to support as goodness wins and wickedness is destroyed.”
* * *
Edna Griffin, still on her knees, began to sing once again and everyone present, choristers, parents, children and cab driver joined in, and the firmament was filled with the glorious affirmation to God of “How great though art”, and, when the hymn was finished sherry not beer, and biscuits not cakes toasted the blessing of good health and happiness to all.