Read Trouble in the Town Hall Online
Authors: Jeanne M. Dams
Trouble in the Town Hall
Table of Contents
The Dorothy Martin Mysteries
THE BODY IN THE TRANSEPT
TROUBLE IN THE TOWN HALL
HOLY TERROR IN THE HEBRIDES
MALICE IN MINIATURE
THE VICTIM IN THE VICTORIA STATION
KILLING CASSIDY
TO PERISH IN PENZANCE
SINS OUT OF SCHOOL
WINTER OF DISCONTENT
A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT
THE EVIL THAT MEN DO
THE CORPSE OF ST JAMES'S
MURDER AT THE CASTLE
A Dorothy Martin Mystery
Jeanne M. Dams
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First published in the United States of America in 1996
by Walker Publishing Company, Inc.
eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 1996 by Jeanne M. Dams
The right of Jeanne M. Dams to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0073-0 (ePub)
Many people helped with the research for this book, but I owe special thanks to Sir Robert Bunyard, retired Chief Constable of the County of Essex, for his invaluable expertise about the intricacies of English police procedure. If I've made mistakes, it is despite his excellent advice.
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This eBook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
To my mentor and biggest fan,
my wardrobe adviser and best friend,
my surrogate motherâ
to the woman who is all those things,
my sister, Betty
T
HE CLOUDLESS HEAVENS
had just begun to pale over the ancient cathedral town of Sherebury. As the last few stars flickered out in the brightening sky of that midsummer dawn, England turned its worshiping face to its oldest god, the sunâwhich divinity, with a beaming benevolence rare in those latitudes, poured out his blessings upon the city. The warm tide of light, paying tribute first to the newer creed, flowed over the topmost cross of the cathedral, washing its cool stone with golden glory, splashing down the spire. Treetops and chimney stacks were warmed and brightened, as were the roofs of the university on the hill and the clock tower of the Town Hall. The clock face showed 4:57.
Minute by minute, as the sun rose higher, its golden rays reached deeper, bathing the humbler roofs, the walls, the windows. In east-facing bedrooms, springs creaked and snores were interrupted as sleepers shifted to keep the brilliance out of their eyes.
The light at last reached the humble, dusty window of a broom closet, shining straight into the open eyes of the man on the floor who lay unblinking, unmoving.
The sunlight, indifferent, continued its stately progress.
T
HE JUNE DAY
had started off normally enough with the cats' demands to be fed and let out. They'd been up very earlyâthe birds' response to a brilliant midsummer sunrise had wakened all their hunting instinctsâbut there was, unfortunately, nothing unusual about that. By six I was functional myself and trying to do something about my flower beds, to the astonishment of my next-door neighbor. She restrained herself, however.
“Quite a job of work you've got there, Dorothy,” she said mildly, leaning on the back gate and surveying the dejected-looking flower bed over the top of her glasses with a Churchillian frown.
“Jane Langland, don't you start making caustic remarks.” I sat up, with sharp cracks from both knees, and looked over my scraggly flowers and flourishing weeds. “I know I've never been much of a gardener, and maybe I'm a little old to start now. But I've wanted an English garden all my life. Your climate in this country gives people pneumonia, but it does wonders for roses.”
“Not doing much for yours,” retorted Jane with brutal candor. “Why not find a gardener?”
“Even if I could afford it, the midwestern work ethic would protest. Frank and I always did things ourselves.” And together. I brushed a sudden treacherous tear from my cheek, careless of the mud on my gloves, and Esmeralda woke from her nap in a patch of catnip and came over to rub her comforting, furry gray bulk against my legs.
“Frank loved gardens, too,” Jane pointed out briskly. “He told me so, when you two were first thinking of moving here from the States. Said the flowers were the best thing about England. Expect he's up there shaking his head over the hash you're making of this.”
“Probably.” I managed a grin in appreciation of her unsentimental sympathy. “Anyway, I don't want to commit myself to a gardener while everything is so unsettled. I thought this morning, when those miserable beasts wanted out at the crack of dawn, that I should put in a cat door. But I can't do even a simple thing like that until I own the house, and I'm
not
going to buy it unless I can fix it up, and it looks to me as if this planning thing is going to go on forever.” I waved away a heavy, furry bumble-bee and bent to my work again, viciously attacking a clump of large leaves while Samantha, my Siamese, chased the bee.
“Planning permission takes weeks,” Jane pointed out, “especially for a listed building. I'd engage that gardener, meanwhile. Planning committee's more apt to believe you intend to preserve the character of the house if the garden is lovely and traditional. Which it won't be under your tender care.” She chuckled richly in a deep baritone. “That âweed' you just murdered was a delphinium, you know.”
B
UT I TOILED
stubbornly for the rest of that gorgeous, increasingly hot morning, until the phone call from Alan rescued me. I was delighted to accept a last-minute lunch date with Sherebury's chief constable, who had been so busy with constabulary duties that I'd hardly seen him for the past couple of weeks. So I dolled myself up in a smart new black-and-white dress and my best black straw hat, and sallied forth to do a little shopping before lunch at the new Indian restaurant we'd been wanting to try.
Or at least I tried to sally. A morning spent on my knees hadn't improved either them or my back, and black patent heels are impractical walking shoes for a woman of any age, let alone one who'sâwell, old enough to know better. So if sallying implies a certain briskness of pace, mine was more of a meander.
It suited the day, anyway. Sherebury High Street was, I thought critically, looking somewhat better than in recent months. The weather had brought out shoppers in droves, and the baskets full of petunias and geraniums hanging from the lampposts looked festive. The cathedral spire, just visible over the shops across the street, positively sparkled against the perfect blue sky.
There was still a certain gap-toothed look to the street, though. Every month or so another shop closed “for renovations” and never reopened. The depressed economy of my adopted town was showing, and I worried about it.
The worst blight of all was the poor old Town Hall, decaying from dry rot and the deathwatch beetle, and most of all from lack of money for repairs. Nothing could spoil its generous Elizabethan proportions, or its exquisite materials and workmanship, but with official city business having moved to a hideous new Civic Centre, the Town Hall exuded the bereft air of the abandoned. The great tubs of flowers that used to flank its studded oak doors had been taken away, the papers fluttering from the notice boards were torn and faded. Streaked, uncurtained windows looked in on a once busy, now deserted interior.
But it wasn't deserted. I stopped just as I was about to pass the building, and stared. I could have sworn I'd seen movement behind one of the windowsâthere it was again! I moved closer and peered into dimness; I thought I caught a glimpse of something, but then it was gone.
I tried the doorâlocked, just as it should be. Certainly it was no business of mine, but a confirmed snoop is never put off by a little thing like that. I knocked.
The shadow came closer. “Round to the side door! I 'aven't got me key to the front!”
The voice, female and strongly Cockney, reassured me utterly. Obviously she belonged there (and I did not), but I was committed now. Feeling silly, I went obediently to the side door, a dreary little portal I had never noticed before, opening onto the narrow passageway between the Town Hall and the modern building next door.
A large gray-haired woman stood in the doorway, dustcloth in hand. Appraising my going-out-to-lunch dress and hat, she spoke doubtfully. “Was you wantin' somethin', madam? On account of, there's nobody 'ere no more, you know.”
“I know,” I agreed apologetically. “I'm sorry to bother you, but when I saw someone in here I wonderedâI mean, I didn't know the building was still being kept clean, Mrs.â?”
“Ada Finch. And as for keepin' it clean, that's in a manner of speakin', that is. Come in, then, luv.” Seizing the opportunity for conversation, she led me round to the staircase in the front hall, settled herself with a comfortable grunt on the third step, and took up where she'd left off. “In the old days I'd 'ave bin 'ere at 'alf past five, to get everything spic
and
span for them as worked 'ere. Now, o' course, it's just keepin' the woodwork nice for them as is goin' to move in, so I only 'as a day now and again, and 'oo knows 'ow long that'll keep on.” She fetched a gusty sigh from beneath the layers of sweaters that covered her ample bosom. “Breaks me 'eart, it does, to see the place like this after all the years I looked after it lovely.”
“The woodwork is still beautiful, though. The carving on that staircase is in perfect condition.”
“Never a crack in it,” said Mrs. Finch triumphantly, giving the elaborate spiked newel post an affectionate rub with her rag, “for all it is 'undreds of years old. Lovely piece of work, that staircase is. Carved all the way to the top, and every landin' different. Makes a lot of work, but I keeps it nice. You should 'ave seen the job I 'ad, too, cleanin' it proper when I first come to work 'ere. More years ago than I care to remember, that was, and me just a young girl workin' under that sour old Mr. Jobbins.” She sniffed. “More concerned about gettin' 'is tea regular than keeping the place up to snuff, 'ee was. Young I might've bin, but I knew better than to let the dust pile up in all them crevices. I bin trained right. Went at it with a nail file, I did, and sometimes a toothpick, month after month, until I 'ad it lookin' like new. Polishes up a treat, don't it?”
