Threats at Three

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  SIXTY-ONE

  SIXTY-TWO

  SIXTY-THREE

  Titles by Ann Purser

  Lois Meade Mysteries

  MURDER ON MONDAY

  TERROR ON TUESDAY

  WEEPING ON WEDNESDAY

  THEFT ON THURSDAY

  FEAR ON FRIDAY

  SECRETS ON SATURDAY

  SORROW ON SUNDAY

  WARNING AT ONE

  TRAGEDY AT TWO

  THREATS AT THREE

  Ivy Beasley Mysteries

  THE HANGMAN’S ROW ENQUIRY

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2010 by Ann Purser.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Purser, Ann.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-44588-4

  1. Meade, Lois (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 3. England—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6066.U758T46 2010

  823’.914—dc22

  2010035454

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ONE

  WE SHALL NEED A SUBCOMMITTEE, OF COURSE,” SAID MRS. Tollervey-Jones.

  Derek groaned inwardly. He waited for the chair’s eagle eye to fall on him. Sure enough, she said that the one person who knew all about organising was Derek Meade. He ran a successful one-man electrical business in Long Farnden, a small village in the heart of England, and was, so said Mrs. T-J, just the man to mastermind the centenary celebration event.

  This would celebrate the hundredth birthday of the village hall, a wooden structure that had miraculously survived rising damp, woodworm and rot. But without serious attention, its days were now numbered. Estimates for repair and renovation had been sought, and the most conservative of those submitted was still a very large sum of money. This would need to be raised. In the present climate of financial belt-tightening they could not rely on grants.

  “So the event has to be really spectacular, Derek,” said Mrs. T-J. She added that she was sure the subcommittee would come up with something remarkable, which they would submit to the parish council at the next meeting in a month’s time.

  The subject was then thrown open for discussion, and, as expected by most of the eight members of the council, was at once hectic to the point of violent disagreement. In other words, Mrs. T-J was faced with a punch-up. In her best justice of the peace voice, she quelled the riot. “Now settle down, all of you,” she said severely. “I am well aware we have two factions in this matter.”

  “Three,” said Derek glumly. “There’s us, and them, and then the others.”

  “Very clear,” said the vicar, Father Rodney. “Perhaps you could elucidate, Mrs. Tollervey-Jones?”

  “Not in here, I hope,” whispered young farmer John Thornbull to Derek, who managed to turn a guffaw into a sneeze.

  “Bless you,” said Floss Cullen, the newest co-opted member of the council.

  “Youth,” Mrs. T-J had said, “we need a young person, preferably a woman, to represent young people in the village.” Derek and John had sighed. Their chair, as she liked to be called, was known for getting sudden bees in her bonnet. These would be pursued enthusiastically, and when achieved, she would be on to the next innovation. Old Tony Dibson, the oldest and longest serving councillor muttered on each occasion that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with the council as it was, and if it weren’t broken, why fix it?

  Floss had been co-opted, and had indeed brought a breath of fresh air to the council proceedings. She could persuade even diehards like Tony Dibson to her point of view. She worked for Derek’s wife, Lois Meade, who ran New Brooms, a cleaning service based in the village, and with an office in Tresham, the nearest large town. Now married to Ben Cullen, Floss continued her cleaning work because she enjoyed it, though she had done well at school and had been expected by her parents to do something better than scrubbing other people’s floors.

  Now the three factions had settled back into their seats, and Father Rodney asked again if he could be told exactly what the proposals were.

  Derek looked at his watch. “I can tell you, Vicar,” he said. Mrs. T-J nodded her approval, and he said, “Repair the village hall. Knock it down and build a new one. Adapt the old catgut factory to be the village hall. That’s the three, and I suggest we have a vote right now on whi
ch one we’re going for.”

  “Just to recap on these,” Mrs. T-J said, taking charge, “the first, to repair the hall, is a straightforward job. Expensive, but straightforward, and well in line with a celebration of one hundred years serving the village. The second would be hugely expensive, and the third is impractical, the catgut factory being outside the village and the other side of the railway line.”

  “Which may one day be reopened,” said the vicar. “And anyway, that factory is an eyesore and a danger to the children who play there.”

  “We always played there,” said Tony Dibson. “Never came to any harm, not none of us.”

  Mrs. T-J said that was irrelevant, and could they please get on. She took a vote, and the first of the proposals won. “So there we are, Derek,” she said. “Repair and renovate, and in due course a celebratory opening. Perhaps I can persuade my son, who is, as you all know, a well-known barrister, to perform the ceremony.”

  “Hold yer water, missus,” Tony Dibson said. “Let’s get the money first, do the work, an’ then it’ll be time to think about openin’ ceremonies. As fer who should open it, I reckon we should be thinkin’ of somebody off the telly. One of them celebrities,” he added.

  The rest of the agenda was swiftly dealt with, and Mrs. T-J closed the meeting, saying she would leave it to Derek to get a representative subcommittee together and report to the next council meeting.

  THE PUB WAS ALREADY BUSY, AND DEREK AND JOHN THORNBULL pushed their way to the bar. “Usuals?” said the barman. They nodded, and took their pints to a table in the corner just vacated by a couple from Waltonby. “Evenin’,” Derek said. “Bit chilly out there. Winter’s comin’ on.” He and John settled down, took long drafts of ale, and were silent for a few minutes.

  “Who shall we ask, then?” Derek said finally.

  “And how many?”

  “Oh, I should think five of us would do it. Don’t want too many, else you get nuthin’ done. So there’s us two, old Tony, for what he can remember about the village in the past, and who else?”

  John frowned. “We need somebody with a bit of experience of fund-raising,” he said. “After all, we’re aiming for a really big lump sum. Don’t want a load of footling little craft fairs, book sales and all that. Hard work for everybody and tuppence-ha’penny profit at the end of it.”

  “What about the vicar?” Derek said. Father Rodney was new and untried. He had replaced a nice, gentle man, who had been popular with the older ladies, but ineffective in raising the church’s profile and certainly not a great money-spinner.

  “What do we know about him, apart from the fact that he’s a widower?” John said. “I suppose one of our churchgoers would know a bit of his background. After all, vicars get interviewed, like anybody applying for a job. He’s youngish and seems keen.”

  “I’ll ask Lois,” Derek said. “She and the girls clean for him once a week. She’ll have all the info we need. You know my Lois!”

  New Brooms was not exactly a cover for Lois’s work with the Tresham police, but ever since the business was set up she had investigated cases locally on an independent basis, using her cleaners to gather information. Snooping, she admitted. “Ferretin’, gel. That’s what I’d call it. Sticking your nose into dark corners and gettin’ all of us into trouble,” Derek said.

  She worked for no pay on cases that interested her, or when on one or two occasions, her own family had been involved. And her connection with the police was restricted to one ramrod straight and serious policeman, Chief Detective Inspector Hunter Cowgill. A reserved and highly efficient professional, he said frequently that he valued her input. He also loved her dearly, which he didn’t say, at least, not very often. His nephew Matthew, also a policeman in the Tresham station, fancied Lois’s daughter, but that was Josie’s affair.

  “Good idea,” said John. His own wife, Hazel, ran the New Brooms’ Tresham office, and would certainly be able to help. He had a sudden thought. “Shall I ask Hazel to do the secretarial work for the subcommittee?” he asked, and Derek approved the idea with alacrity.

  “One more, then,” he said. “What about Gavin Adstone?”

  “The lone parishioner attending our meeting, and unsquashable? Are you serious?” John said. Gavin Adstone was one of the bright young incomers, disliked by most people for his instantly given opinions on every subject raised, and obvious contempt for the old tried and tested village ways. But Derek thought he could see good in the man. All that brash exterior covered a willing spirit, and he could see that they would sorely need such a one on the village hall project.

  “Better to have him working with us than against us,” was all he said, and John reluctantly agreed. “You ask him then,” he said. “And on your own head be it.”

  WHEN A SUITABLY MELLOW DEREK ARRIVED HOME, LOIS WAS waiting for him in the warm kitchen. Gran, Lois’s mother, had gone to bed with a book, and the kitchen was quiet and peaceful.

  “Good meeting?” Lois said.

  “Not bad,” Derek said, wondering how to break the news to her that he was now chairing the village hall project subcommittee. He need not have worried.

  “So did you get the job?” she asked. When he did not answer straightaway, she added that the parish council meeting agenda was fixed to the notice board, so she knew about the project and had guessed the rest. “I thought it would be dumped in your lap,” she said. “Can’t say no, that’s your trouble.”

  Derek put his arms around her shoulders and kissed the back of her neck. “Luckily for you,” he muttered into her silky hair. “When you proposed to me, I mean,” he added, and retreated quickly as she rounded on him, as expected.

  TWO

  GAVIN ADSTONE HAD ARRIVED IN THE VILLAGE WITH HIS wife and toddler daughter a year and a half ago, and had immediately thrown himself into village activities without realising that a more considered approach would have made him more acceptable to the small community. He had joined the playing fields committee, the darts team at the pub, offered to play cricket for Long Farnden, even considered the reading group but decided it was a lot of old fogies reading romantic novels and not for him. He worked for an IT company in Tresham, and had yet to discover that Lois Meade’s son Douglas had a senior position in the same company. He was thirty-two years old, and had the confidence and cheek of the devil. In other words, as Derek had guessed, he was perfect for the task of raising a large sum of money for the village hall.

  “How was it tonight?” asked his wife, as he came into their small cottage with a blast of cold air. Gavin had gone along to the meeting out of curiosity, rather fancying the idea that at some point he wouldn’t mind being a parish councillor himself. He was told that he could not speak unless prearranged with the secretary, but this had not bothered him unduly, nor stopped his interjections, and he was not overawed by Mrs. Tollervey-Jones.

  “Much as usual,” he said. “I reckon nothing’s changed for the last fifty years. Some posh old dame is in the chair. The one who lives at Farnden Hall, I think. Talk about feudalism! You should have heard her keeping the unruly peasants in order!”

  “So what did they talk about? Strip farming? Poaching in the squire’s woods?”

  Kate Adstone was a small, dark-haired thirty-year-old, very dry and sharp. Their daughter Cecilia took all her time at the moment, but she intended to return to her job as a family mediator in due course.

  “No, it was mostly about the proposed centenary celebrations for the crumbling village hall. We’ve talked about it in the pub, as you know, and I am all for bulldozing the old shed down and bringing the village up into the twenty-first century.”

  “So what happened?”

  “They had a vote. Restoring the old shed won by one vote. So that’s what they’re going to do. Big effort planned to fund-raise enough money to do the job. What a waste! The whole place will fall down in another ten years anyway.”

  Kate laughed. “They need you, Gavin,” she said, and added to herself that Gavin needed them,
too. Since they had moved here—a mistake, in her opinion—he had been like a caged tiger. He had boundless energy, was good at getting things done, and could strong-arm his way into and out of any situation. Perhaps she should have a word with somebody. Put his name forwards?

  A preliminary little cry from upstairs brought them both to their feet. Cecilia was their first child, and neither had any previous experience of handling toddlers. So they crept upstairs to see if she was even a little bit unhappy. They peered into her cot, and she opened her eyes, saw their anxious faces, and opened her tiny mouth to give a surprisingly loud bellow.

  TONY DIBSON HAD ENJOYED HIS PINT OF BEST IN THE CORNER OF the bar beside a roaring log fire. The ritual of the council meeting, followed by a pint in the pub and a game of dominoes with his good friend Fred Smith, had played its part in his village routine for years. At each council election, he allowed his name to be put forwards, and he always commanded a sizable vote. This year, however, he had only just scraped in by a few votes. Time to go, he told himself. Too many new people in the village, and he was too old to fight for what he believed was good for the community. Not that he had ever thought about it in those terms. Being on the parish council was something he’d always done, and his father before him, and he had known instinctively what most of the villagers would want. Not anymore though, he thought, as he put his last tile triumphantly on the table.

  Then Derek Meade and John Thornbull had come over, and asked him to be on the subcommittee to organise fund-raising for repairing the old village hall. It wouldn’t be the first time it had been repaired. He remembered over the last forty odd years many occasions when the roof had leaked, the plumbing seized up, when windows had been broken by vandals, and the kitchen tap had been left running and flooded the whole place. Money had been found to cope with these, and there was always a generous donation from her up at the hall.