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‘Suspicious minds’ is the second in my trilogy of ‘The Bretherton Mysteries’

Taster:
The first ‘Blooming marvellous’ introduced the villagers of Bretherton and Audrey Parsons, Leader of the ladies choir and fount of all knowledge on village matters. In this new tale we meet Audrey and her associates once more, in pursuit of the vandal whose activities threaten that bastion of rural life the late summer show!

Constable Clifford Davis was way out of his depth and he knew it!
For the fourth time since all fools day the hallowed earth of the Bretherton allotment society, a number of kitchen gardens and several small holders’ fields in the district had been desecrated by vandals and with the harvest month of August still to come, the villagers were angry.
The assembly in the little village hall was unusually belligerent as the unhappy policeman tried to address them from the stage. Unable to make himself heard Constable Davis was quickly reduced to waving his arms in a peculiar flapping action as if to press the hubbub into silence.
Nobody noticed.
And nobody noticed Audrey Parsons, small farmer, leader of the Bretherton ladies choir and fount of all knowledge on matters of village life, as she quietly mounted the stage and drew the officer into the wings.
She returned to centre stage…alone.

[More:]

One hundred hands covered one hundred ears and fifty tongues were stilled in an instant.
Audrey Parsons lowered the ‘acme thunderer’ standard police issue whistle from her lips and passed it to the now pale and shaking constable just off stage.
These events however were entirely lost to old Ernie Jefferson.
A sapper throughout the Second World War Ernie had lost his hearing in a mine clearing incident which had taken the life of his best friend “Chalkie White” and a senior officer.
Neither raised voices nor whistle blasts troubled him in the least and it was Ernie’s voice alone which was heard now.
“I tell you it’s them bloody gypsies over in Clunch Bottom Wood, them’s your culprits!”
Charlie Cotter gently elbowed his old friend then pointed his attention towards the stage.
“Oh, oh right, sorry about that Miss Parsons, ‘scuse my French and that!”
Audrey smiled.
“That’s OK Ernie, but I would thank you not to describe Mr O’Rourke and his delightful family as Gypsies. May I remind you that those of us with farming interests in this area depend upon the O’Rourkes at harvest time and for the sheep dipping and furthermore, there is more than one person in this hall who has willingly employed the children on pocket money wages which, I surely don’t need to remind you, is an offence.”
Constable Davis emerged from behind the flies, pulled a notebook from his pocket and licked his pencil.
“Oh, put the notebook away Clifford…my point is that the O’Rourkes are the very last people to go around vandalising crops. Why destroy a good livelihood?”
For the first time since the whistle blast the assembled crowd murmured their agreement.
Charlie Cotter raised his hand and Audrey nodded to indicate that he should speak.
“Yes, well, I was just wondering, what with your background and that, if you had any ideas about who might be doing this?”
Audrey Parsons was the younger daughter of Sir Archibald Parsons QC and whilst her own legal career had only recently begun with her appointment as junior magistrate she was happy to encourage the older village folk who regarded her as the embodiment of every fictional colossus of the courtroom, every gumshoe sleuth and every world weary police chief to be found on the shelves of the mobile library.
“Bless you Charlie. What would I know? I’m just a country girl!”
Charlie gave an involuntary chuckle at the thought of Audrey in gingham with straw in her hair…she continued.
“But, as a matter of fact I have been giving this case some attention…Thank you Mrs Griffin.”
Edna Griffin had served many years in the role of lieutenant to Audrey, the undisputed general commander of the Bretherton ladies choir.
The hall was plunged into pitch darkness then instantly illuminated by a huge image of Edna’s Yorkshire terrier ‘Tigger’ projected upon the wall behind the stage. “Oops, sorry” called Edna from her position concealed in the gallery.
She prodded uncertainly at the laptop computer, loaned, somewhat reluctantly by her grandson Robert known to his friends as ‘Zeit’.
The image of ‘Tigger’ vanished and was quickly replaced by a page of close typed text, several tables of figures and a graph. Audrey Parsons stepped forward into the edge of the illuminated screen now holding the conductors baton with which she had so ably piloted the ladies choir over many years.

Over the course of the next hour Audrey led the village through her carefully considered analysis of the recent crime wave and of its likely perpetrator. Beginning with motive, progressing through forensic evidence and concluding with a full psychological profile.
Finally satisfied, Audrey prepared to dismiss the assembly in churchillian fashion.
“And so my friends we know our quarry, we know his little ways and we know what drives him. So go, return to your homes and to your farms, but be always vigilant, in the shops, in the public houses, in the streets and yes, even in church.
There is evil in our midst, but evil shall not triumph!”
The crowd erupted in cheers and exploded through the heavy oak double doors, many pausing to pump Audrey’s hand as they left into the warm summer night.

The next few days passed uneventfully.
On Tuesday morning Mrs Ellis telephoned from Bolsingham to say that her daughter Julie, who works in the office at St Benedict’s school, had overheard Miss Sullivan on the telephone to a parent.
Miss Sullivan, perhaps best known for her skills with the macramé needle had taken responsibility for the creation of the millennium garden and was clearly on the receiving end of a very sharp tongue at the other end of the telephone.
“Yes Mrs Crichton, yes of course Cosmo was proud of his leeks, I do understand, yes, yes...yes, yes, but I can’t just go and accuse Percival and Lucinda of stealing them, there’s no evidence do you see?”
Mrs Ellis related the third hand, one sided conversation with enthusiasm concluding “So, what do you think of that Miss Parsons? Leeks taken from the school garden and no clue as to the culprit! The Bretherton Shredder, here, in Bolsingham!”
Derek Boyle, head teacher at St Benedict’s was a keen Bridge player and occasionally partnered Audrey. She telephoned him immediately.
Somewhat baffled by her insight and interest into the minutiae of school life Derek promised to investigate and within the hour he called back to explain that, under interrogation by the year six boys, Mr Grover the caretaker had confessed that his wife, Gwen, had raided the garden over the weekend in order to prepare his favourite Leek and potato soup as a birthday treat and that he wanted half a pound of blackcurrants and a courgette to be taken into account too.
The year six girls had felt sorry for the elderly man once they learned it was his birthday and they picked him a punnet of raspberries for his tea.
A false alarm!

On Thursday morning the door bell rang, very early. Audrey stumbled across the half lit room to the front door, opened it a crack and squinted into the glare of the rising sun.
“Morning Audrey!”
It was Margaret Richardson from Knoll farm.
“Oh,oh good morning Margaret, I’m afraid you’ve rather erm…”
Margaret pushed the door back and strode into the room.
“Never mind that Audrey, there’s a villain on the manor and he’s tried to blag my gaff!”
Margaret was very fond of London police dramas on the television and never missed an opportunity to deploy the slang.
“Blag your gaff, yes, well, erm…a cup of tea Margaret?” said Audrey hopefully.
Audrey Parsons prepared a large pot of finest English Breakfast tea and between large draughts and four refills of her dainty bone china cup, Margaret explained what had happened, interrupted only occasionally when Audrey required clarification as to the meaning of a piece of rhyming slang or underworld code.
“So!”
Declared Audrey, now wide awake and very interested.
“You say that you heard the fellow first?”
“What a muppet! Blundering through the hedge like a bull in a wasname. I’d lay a monkey to a pony that he was blind drunk!”
“Yes, quite!...and did you see him?”
Margaret narrowed her eyes.
“I seen him, with me own two peepers Aud. Mean looking cove, bashed about, teeth all out of line, like he’d spent a few years in the ring, not any more though. Gone to seed! More fat than muscle!”
“I see!”
Audrey frowned
“And he was vandalising your kitchen garden?”
“Your ‘aving a laugh ain’t you?”
Audrey snapped.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake Margaret, can you please speak to me in my own language for once?”
Margaret looked a little crest fallen.
“Oh, yes, right. Well, no he didn’t do any actual damage in the garden. As soon as I saw his ugly fizzog coming through the hedge I slipped the leashes off Shylock and Columbo and they soon saw him off. I daresay he got a very sore behind for his trouble. Shylock’s very partial to his pound of flesh!”

Later, over coffee and an ameretto biscotti at the “Jenny Lind” café Audrey reflected upon this latest development.
Margaret Richardson’s close encounter bore all the hallmarks of the serial vandal and given that he had followed his now well established modus operandum to the letter it must be assumed that, were it not for the intervention of Margaret’s ‘staffies’ Bretherton would have lost one of its horticultural masterpieces.
Leaving sufficient money to cover the cost of her refreshment and a tip of precisely ten percent, Audrey left the Jenny Lind still deep in thought.

Pausing to examine the fillet of beef in the butcher’s window Audrey was aware of a man beside her. Heavily scarved and wearing a hat, only the man’s right hand was visible where it clutched the top of a heavy blackthorn walking stick. It was the only clue that Audrey required.
“Charlie Cotter? What on earth are you doing? You could scare a person to death creeping around like that!”
From the man’s swathed head came a hissing sound followed by a few rhythmic grunts.
“What?” enquired Audrey
Once again… “Ssssssssssssssss..Mt...Nm…Hhhhhhr”
“Oh for Pete’s sake!”
Audrey pulled the hat and scarf from Charlie’s head.
“Oi said, Shhhhhhh…we can’t talk here!...I got news, about the Bretherton shredder!”
Audrey led Charlie back to the café where he gladly accepted her offer of a cup of tea, also noting that the ameretto biscotti looked particularly nice.
“So Charlie”
Audrey began
“What have you got to tell me?”
Charlie collected the final crumb of ameretto biscotti from his beard popped it into his mouth and began.
“I know whose doing it!”
Audrey leaned towards the old man
“You know, but who, how?”
Charlie smiled.
“Well first the how! I took a leaf out of your book and I thought whose got the motive? Then I asks meself what have the victims got in common? Who’s got the opportunity and so on, ‘til there’s only one remaining suspect.”
Audrey was impressed
“Goodness Charlie Cotter, you have been busy. So?”
Charlie frowned
“So what?”
“So who is the Bretherton shre…I mean who is the vandal destroying our crops?”
Charlie fixed Audrey with eyes still piercingly blue and twinkling despite his age.
He placed his hand gently upon her wrist.
“I think we both know the answer to that question don’t we Miss Parsons?”

Audrey spoke through tightly pursed lips.
“Charles Cotter are you seriously suggesting that I am the perpetrator of these, these acts of wanton destruction?”
The old man stood up, pushing his chair back and leaning upon his two clenched fists
“Well it stands to reason don’t it? You had the motive, everyone knows that you always carry off the leek trophy at the late summer show, which I don’t need to remind you, is only two days hence. Yeah, but your facing a bit of competition from the youngsters these days ‘int you? And look at the victims! Every one of them poor souls that’s had a bit of damage has lost leeks! So that leaves psychological profile. Well I got a book off of the mobile library and I done a bit of reading and I reckon you are a classic victim of what they call pre oedipal separation reflex, manifest in adulthood as psychopathy…There Audrey Parsons what do you say to that?”
Audrey had raised her closed hand to her mouth, her eyes were tightly shut and she was rocking from the waist.
Charlie was triumphant.
“Oh yes, you can cry, but what about them poor folks that lost their crops? Who’s going to cry for them eh? And you a magistrate an’ all”
Audrey spoke.
“Sit down Charlie!”
But the old man would not be silenced
“Why’s that then? Afraid that folks might hear what’s been going on?”
Audrey lowered her hand to the table and looked up into Charlie’s eyes, her face wet with tears of laughter.
“Charlie Sit down and shut up, now, before you make a total fool of yourself.”
Charlie sat.

“That’s better, now Charlie, how long have we known each other?”
A frown creased the old man’s brow as he recollected
“We met the very day you was born. Mrs Cotter, god rest her, helped your mum while I took Sir Archibald down to the Lamb for a pint. When we got back there you were!”
Audrey smiled.
“Exactly, so listen.
Firstly, I am only growing leeks for the pot this year. There are far better show growers amongst the youngsters in the village these days and anyway I’ve rather got my eye on the prize for sweet peas at the show, you might have noticed the blooms in my garden.
Secondly, my own garden was ravaged on the very first night of attacks back in May. You’re right about the leeks, I’ll be coming to you to supply me over the winter months.
And finally, Margaret Richardson came to call this morning. She not only saw the vandal, an ugly piece of work by her account, but set her Staffordshire bull terriers on him.
Now Charlie. You will forgive me if I decline to show you my posterior as proof that I have not been the subject of Shylock’s attentions, but I would ask you to allow that, even though the years have taken a certain toll, my face does not bear witness to a pugilistic career…more tea?”

Friday morning was when Audrey supervised the arrangement of the flowers in the church. There was no wedding scheduled so Audrey and her ladies deployed bunches of crimson, gold and purple dahlias at the chancel steps and around the altar. Over lunch the talk was of nothing but the pursuit of the ‘Bretheton shredder’. Newlywed Amy Warren let her imagination run away with her and left her cream of tomato soup untouched saying it reminded her of blood. Edna Griffin pointed out that blood is a fluid found exclusively in the animal kingdom and that the leeks and other vegetables which suffered in these attacks would ooze only juice or sap. Amy decided that the homemade lemon squash provided by Emma Brigham wasn’t to her liking either.

Audrey had enjoyed a long and mutually satisfactory relationship with Mrs Aileen Ferris, her hairdresser, but Aileen had recently taken the opportunity of Mr Ferris’s redundancy from the building trade to persuade her husband to retire to rural Ireland. A couple of girls from Bolsingham took over the hairdressing business. The name was changed to “Curl up & Dye” and they played pop music, loudly!
“Well, needs must!” thought Audrey as she opened the door and approached the counter. A girl, dressed entirely in black and with her hair bleached snow white sat at the counter filing a black lacquered finger nail.
“Awright?”
Audrey looked around to see who might merit so casual an address before recognising that this was her welcome.
“Oh yes, erm, thank you. I have an appointment with, with Cobweb at three thirty”.
Cobweb it transpired was the girl on the counter who, for all her limited communication skills proved to be a highly accomplished hairdresser and soon Audrey was relaxing with coffee whilst her hair was finally teased, blown and sprayed into place. It was only then that she noticed the music. Not the primitive rhythms and threatening lyrics of so much modern music. This piece was different. From an earlier time. A time of her own youth. She found herself quietly singing along…with ‘The King’… “I’m caught in a trap…I can’t get out…’cos I love you too much baby”.
Cobweb was more than a little surprised by Audrey’s generous gratuity and hastened to hold the door open as she left the salon. But Audrey’s attention was elsewhere. “A trap to catch the vandal” she thought “Because he loves leeks too much…baby!”
Arriving home, still humming, Audrey noticed the ‘messages received’ signal on her answerphone was flashing. She pressed the button marked ‘listen’. It was Clifford Davis.
“Oh, right yes, a message…Dear Miss Parsons…no…hello Miss Parsons…no…well, look, I’ve got Polly Abbott banged up in the cell down here and guess what? She’s only the Bretherton shredder that’s all!…who’d have believed it eh? Tch, little church mouse Polly Abb…” at that the message ended somewhat abruptly as the recording capacity of the ancient machine was exhausted.
Audrey sighed and picked up the telephone.
“Hello, Edna dear. Oh thank God you’re in.
Look, this Bretherton shredder business, it’s getting out of hand. Could you meet me at the ‘Jenny Lind’ in half an hour. I want you to bring a large scale map of the district and a plan of the showground. Oh and by the way I am going to bring Constable Davis and Polly Abbott with me so could you get four cups of tea, there’s a dear.”

Had the community of Bretherton been but a single body then Polly Abbott would have been its conscience. Every good cause, every injustice and every possible need were meat and drink to Polly. She would gladly have offered herself for judgement for the very sins of the other villagers but Constable Davis wasn’t so sure.
“The trouble is” he explained to Audrey. “She confessed. She says that she carried out all of the attacks single handed and you know as well as I do that there is nothing that stands up so well in a court of law as a confession of guilt!”
Audrey’s response was terse.
“Clifford, the woman that you have locked in your cell is convinced that she is personally responsible for every ill which befalls this troubled planet. She has confessed to every crime from the gunpowder plot to the great train robbery and I am still trying to convince her that she could not have been implicated in the assassination of JFK. Now, go and fetch Polly immediately we have work to do.”

Edna Griffin was already at the ‘Jenny Lind’. She had ordered the tea in plain Mugs which stood on the map spread across the table. ‘Zeit’ had loaned a compass which lay open on the table giving the ensemble a distinctly military appearance.

Audrey was brisk.
“OK everyone…we shall have the Bretherton Shredder in our custody before sunrise tomorrow because tonight he will walk into our trap…look!”
Referring to the map Audrey outlined the plan…
“Every remaining leek of any quality within a five mile radius will be entered in the late summer show tomorrow and I have taken the liberty of visiting each of the regular competitors to collect their entries in person. These I have assembled here in open boxes inside the show marquee on the green. Heaven knows the standard is poor compared to past years, but all of the bait on one hook as it were, will surely tempt our trout!”
Edna raised her hand.
“Yes Edna dear?”
“Well, I was just wondering. The attacks have been, shall we say…random in the past. How do you know that he will come tonight?”
Audrey smiled.
“A good question…our vandal has launched a verified attack at least once during the moonless nights of each month since he began his reign of terror. We know that he had a go at Knoll farm on Wednesday night, but Shylock and Columbo saw him off empty handed. Now, according to my diary there is a new moon tomorrow night and so if he plays by the rules he must come calling tonight!”
Edna was impressed.
Constable Davis coughed nervously
“Yes Clifford?”
“Well, I was just wondering. If we get him into the marquee what is there to stop him just running off as soon as he knows it’s a trap?”
Audrey laughed.
“Clifford Davis you are an officer of the law, upholder of the Queen’s justice. You will park your car in the shadows opposite the entrance to the marquee and you will wait, patiently if needs be. When you see our man enter the tent you will turn on your lights and advance rapidly to block the entrance, you can then leap from your car to effect the arrest!”
“And me?” asked Edna
“Just in case he tries to make a break for it through the exit flap I want you to take this fishing line and string it tightly across the gap about twelve inches above the ground. That should slow him down. Then I want you to go and wait with Clifford.”
Audrey handed Edna an ancient mahogany fly reel wound with line.
“Now Polly, you and I have work to do in the marquee. We shall build a hide from straw bales from which I can photograph the scene as evidence. There’s a big new tractor parked up in the marquee for the ‘tractor ballet’ tomorrow. It’s got a reinforced cab to protect the driver so when we’re ready I shall lock you safely in the cab. That way we can prove to Clifford that you really are innocent of these dreadful crimes and, if the real villain gets a bit shirty you will be out of harms way.”
Polly smiled and clapped her hands.

Pushing the last of the bales into place, Audrey was in jubilant mood. She checked her watch.
“Ten thirty and the trap is set.”
A final adjustment.
“There, that should do it. There’s just enough room to squeeze behind the straw bales with a flask of tea and my old box brownie. We’ll catch him Polly old thing, you see if we don’t.”
There was no reply.
“I say, Polly, we’ll catch him this time eh!”
Audrey turned to see Polly Abbott, white and quivering in the cab of the tractor. Following the line of her frozen gaze it was Audrey’s eyes that widened as they fell upon a truly monstrous sight. For there, at the end of the line of leek boxes stood the prize fighter of Margaret Richardson’s encounter. Bruised and beaten, bristly skin, big distorted teeth.
This was him for sure!
Not a man, but twenty five stones of testosterone driven flesh…
A wild boar.
One of many that escape from the burgeoning specialist farms which litter the countryside. And there on his rump the scabs marking his encounter with the staffies. The beast had entered the marquee at the end and having poor sight, but an excellent sense of smell it had gone immediately to the nearest box of leeks which was now nearly empty.

Science may never understand the intricacies of the human brain and so it must remain a mystery as to how Polly Abbott, every muscle in her frail body frozen in terror, could somehow liberate her left arm sufficiently to bring it down upon the large button labelled ‘horn’ and to hold it thus; But even a ravenous boar has its own dining etiquette and with its feast interrupted by the din, the animal turned its attention to Audrey.
Where were Clifford and Edna and the police car?
The brute snorted, myopically eyeing Audrey as if taking aim, and then charged. Audrey closed her eyes and turned her face to the wall of straw, clenching her body for the impact.
The whoosh of a hydraulic valve.
The rush of a heavy object in motion.
A shriek as a life is extinguished.
Then silence.
Audrey cautiously opened one eye.
There sat Polly slumped across the hydraulic levers, utterly oblivious having fainted rather than bear witness to Audrey’s imminent destruction. And there lay the Boar, quite dead, pierced from its tusked snout to its bristly tail in a diagonal line by the six tines of the bale lifter on the fallen arm of the tractor.
Soon Edna and Clifford were on the scene. Having seen the beast enter the tent, Clifford had delivered the car straight into the long jump pit used throughout the summer for the intervillage athletics. And there it stuck churning sand and going nowhere. Abandoning the vehicle and running for the marquee, Edna and Clifford had decided upon a pincer movement. Edna arrived in the entrance just in time to shout a warning to Clifford going in through the exit flap.
“Watch out for the fi…”
The Constable fell headlong at Audrey’s feet, nose to nose with the dead boar.
“…shing line” finished Edna.

The late summer show was a triumph. Best ever according to Charlie and Ernie, and they have both seen a few in their time. Village newcomers, small holders Paul and Emma Brigham won the Leek trophy, a victory which Charlie attributed to his efforts as a boy before the war. He used to help the former tenants with muckspreading.
Polly Abbott spent the day weaving intricate corn dollies from a diminishing heap of wheat stalks at her side.
Miss Sullivan brought a group from year six in the St Benedict’s minibus. She sold a range of macramé products while the children dispensed the products of their millennium garden.
At three Margaret Richardson arrived with the horse box carrying five anxious looking ewes. A short shearing demonstration followed and by four o’clock all five were back in the box without their fleeces and not so much as a scratch to show for it.
The floral judging was a protracted affair, decisions being somewhat delayed by the debate over whether Dr Crobus could be permitted to serve as a judge when Mrs Crobus had entered a very impressive display of Lilies.
Just before five Edna Griffin appeared at Audrey’s side gently linking arms and pulling close as the judges on the stage shuffled their papers together, nodding and chatting as they moved to the microphone.
“Any moment now Audrey…nervous?”
Audrey was sanguine
“Well, you know Edna its all a bit of a pig in a poke really…by the way did I see young Zeit arm in arm with a girl in the fairground?”
Edna nodded “I know can you believe it? My little Robert with…with a woman”
Audrey was stern.
“For your information Edna Griffin that woman as you put it has a name. She’s called…Cobweb and you will not find a more charming girl around these parts.”
Feedback howled around the tent as the overloaded speakers relayed the results to the floral competitions.
Mrs Crobus was highly commended for her efforts but her entry was withdrawn by mutual agreement. The prize for lilies in a vase going to Amy Warren.
Mrs Ellis won the trophy for a free style arrangement, and Audrey took the sweet pea prize with her display of apricot and cream sweet peas arranged in a crystal champagne flute.
Constable Davis, sitting at the real ale bar, raised his pint of Fosketts ‘Early Bath’ and called for cheers in Audrey Parsons’ honour.
Bretherton butchers did a roaring trade on the all day barbeque and carried off the first prize for charcutery to boot.
The judges were unanimous.
Wild boar and leek sausages “the best in show”.