Twelve Drummers Drumming (20 page)

“Hari works at the Smithsonian.” Mitsuko reappeared. “Akemi—my sister—works in London as a fashion buyer. And of
course,” she gestured towards a picture of an older couple, “those are my parents.”

“Your father manages the Sony plant at Bridgend—is that correct?” Tom recalled this among the flotsam and jetsam in Julia’s précis of the village folk.

“Managed. He retired last year.” Mitsuko perched on the edge of the leather couch, black jeans melding with black leather. “He came from Japan to open the plant in the seventies.”

“And stayed on.”

“Yes … well, more than half his life has been here and he loves it. He’s taking Welsh lessons in retirement and is involved in Welsh folk dancing—at least until this operation. I think my mother sometimes entertains the idea of moving back to Japan—she has a sister near Tokyo—but Akemi and I live relatively nearby, and Hari visits often …”

“You were born … here?” Tom took the seat with the red cushion.

“Yes. Hari’s the oldest. He was born in Japan, but Akemi and I were born in Wales. So despite appearances,” she drew an imaginary circle around her face, “the only Japanese I know are a few remembered words and phrases from childhood that my mother taught me. My father was quite adamant that we stick to English.” She smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid I’m no use to Japanese tourists lost in London.”

Tom smiled in return. “Have you visited? Japan, I mean.”

“No. I … it was never really encouraged. Other than my mother’s sister and a cousin, there’s little family there. My father was an only child, you see, and …” She stopped and stared into her coffee.

“And …?” Tom prompted, after a moment.

“Oh …” Mitsuko shrugged and shifted in her seat. “It’s nothing, really. There’s an estrangement of some nature. My father never speaks of my grandfather.”

“Speaks? If your grandfather’s still alive, then at least there’s a chance for reconciliation, yes?”

Mitsuko’s mouth formed a tight frown, then she said: “The Japanese are a long-lived people. I shall live to be a hundred, I expect.” She brought the coffee to her lips at last. “Oh, that’s very good.” She sighed. “I needed that.”

Tom lifted his cup and likewise took a sip, wondering at her oblique response, but aware that her mind had other preoccupations. The coffee was hot and certainly strong.

“Would you like me to ring the police?”

Mitsuko started. “Whatever for?”

“To report your stolen items,” he replied, taken aback.

She stared at him; then her alarm vanished. “Oh! Of course, that’s what you meant. Sorry. I was thinking about … No, Tom, thank you—I’ll ring them. I have the registration number for the laptop and the other things somewhere.” She looked away and sighed. “I think reporting to the police is really more a formality for our insurer. I’m sure my laptop’s gone for good, poor thing. Besides, the local constabulary has more important things to worry about, doesn’t it?” She turned back to him. In the blackness of her pupils, he thought he detected a new unease. “Sybella, I mean,” she added.

“The CID will be busy,” he agreed, trying to suppress a surge of unpleasant memories that attended his wife’s homicide investigation. “Theft would probably land in some other pigeonhole.”

Mitsuko lifted her legs and folded her body into the corner of the couch. “Maybe I should be grateful the laptop was stolen.”

“Whatever for?”

“It’s managed to distract me. On the drive back from Wales, Sybella didn’t leave my thoughts. But the news reports were so sketchy—they talked about her death being treated ‘as suspicious.’ I kept fiddling with the dial on the radio for something more precise, but all they seemed focused on was Sybella’s parentage: ‘Eighties pop star’s daughter dies’—that sort of thing—until I was driving into the village. Then the news said it was confirmed as homicide. I expect it’s been in the papers.”

Tom nodded assent.

Mitsuko leaned over and placed her cup on the coffee table. “But it didn’t say
how
.”

“I think the police sometimes like to keep certain details to themselves.” He had hoped to keep the speculation from her ears. “It helps them in their investigations.”

“Oh.” Mitsuko began a rhythmic stroking of the hair framing one side of her face. She pulled a few glossy black strands forwards and examined them, the way Lisbeth had sometimes when she was tired or anxious, ostensibly looking for split ends. “But you must have an idea,” she said, regarding him through the scrim of her hair. “I’m sure the whole village knows by now. They usually do.”

“Well, I think people have guessed,” Tom responded. “Given the kinds of questions the police have been asking.” He paused. His heart sank a little. He could sense Mitsuko’s apprehension and he knew the root of it. “Sybella died from a blow to the head.”

The hair fell from her hands and swayed onto her breasts. She stared at him, her face parchment white.

“I’m sorry” was all he could think to say.

“Then you know.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “It is rather a small village. But that doesn’t mean—”

“But that’s what people are
thinking
, isn’t it?” Tom thought guiltily of his little flock only an hour before on the millpond. His lack of response was acquiescence. “It was years ago. It was an accident. Liam never meant to hit that man at that club. He paid his debt.” Mitsuko continued to stare at him, her face a palimpsest of fear; then she glanced away. “I know he has a dreadful temper. I know he can be irrational about”—she stopped herself suddenly—“about things. Oh, God, they’ll ask us questions, won’t they?”

“Who?”

“The police.”

“They’ve already had a conversation with your husband, I’m
afraid. You and Liam were her employers. But I don’t think you need worry unnecess—”

“But it was Sunday night she was killed, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not sure they’ve pinpointed an exact time, but yes. Or early Monday morning.”

“Oh, God.”

“What is it?”

“I … it’s nothing.”

Tom raised both eyebrows.

“Really, Tom, I can’t say.”

Tom gazed unseeingly out the window towards the holiday cottage across The Square and pondered his situation. He took no pleasure in being a conduit of tittle-tattle; he despised tittle-tattle. Neither was his intent to give the Drewes an opportunity to prevaricate before the law. But he felt a need to at least forewarn them, to give them time to look into their hearts that they might not bear false witness.

“You were in the Waterside’s kitchen Sunday evening, around supper time, yes?”

Mitsuko blinked. “Yes.”

“But you left by the delivery door.”

“Yes … but how …?”

“I wasn’t there, if you’re wondering that. But there was a local couple at a table and—”

“And they heard us rowing. Oh, God,” she said again, closing her eyes as if to stave off some awful truth. “Surely they didn’t hear what the argument was about. Please tell me they didn’t hear that.”

“Mitsuko, I think simply the fact that you and Liam and Sybella were rowing in the restaurant a few hours before Sybella’s death will be enough to pique police interest. I don’t know what it was about. I don’t want you to tell me what it was about, and it may be utterly irrelevant. But it’s best if you don’t try to—”

“I can’t, Tom! If I tell them, they’ll think—”

“Think what?”

The new and strident voice filled the room. Tom looked over the back of the couch to see Liam, his arms like tattooed hams crossed over his shirtfront.

“Think what?” Liam said again, louder this time.

“What are you doing here?” Mitsuko unfolded her lithe form and twisted to face him. “What about the lunch trade?”

“I’ve closed the place. What’s he doing here?”

“You wouldn’t come back and help me.”

“I have a restaurant to run.”

“Well, you’re not running it now, are you?”

“I don’t want you hanging about with the likes of him.”

“He’s my
priest
, Liam. That’s all. That’s all it is. That’s all it
ever
was.”

“Get out.” Liam’s eyes burned into Tom’s. He jerked his thumb towards the door.

Tom suppressed an adrenaline rush of anger and glanced at Mitsuko, wondering if 5 The Square was a safe haven for a tiny woman, but her return glance betrayed no new anxiety.
Sorry
, she mouthed to him silently as he rose. Giving a passing thought to the challenge of blessing them that curse you, he manoeuvred past her legs and the coffee table, their eyes meeting again when his shins brushed her knees. He opened his mouth to apologise, but a flicker in her eyes—sharp and bright, like a match struck in a black cave—stopped his tongue. He was certain it was fear.

T
om switched on his computer, hoping to divorce his mind at least for a time from the mystery of Sybella’s death and engage with the certainty of her young life, as well as with the terrible loss to her family and the anxiety in the community. He glanced at the entry in the lectionary for Sunday, June 1, and then set the booklet aside. This was no ordinary week and it would not be an ordinary Sunday. But he had barely begun to organise his thoughts when Miranda peeked around the door.

“Daddy, are you writing your salmon?”

“Yes, darling, the ‘salmon’s’ not quite done, but come in and talk to me.” Tom swivelled in his chair towards her. “I thought you’d gone crabbing with Emily. Wasn’t Daniel to show you how?”

“Yes, he did. I caught lots, but a crab bit Emily so she went home.” Miranda came beside him and slipped her arm around his neck. Tom leaned his head against hers and took in her aroma. She smelled of salt water and, oddly, bacon that had gone off. Then he remembered that crabs went mad for gamy bacon. Cats, probably, too, he thought, noting Powell and Gloria curling around her legs.

“Was Emily hurt very badly?”

“Not really. Daniel was mostly being mean to her. I think that’s why she went home. He was nice to me, though. He helped me bring my bucket and net home.”

“Did you give them to Mrs. Prowse?”

“She has visitors. So I left everything outside.” Miranda reached to pet one of the cats that had leapt onto the desk. “Who is she talking to?”

“Two policemen, from Totnes.”

“Why are they talking to Mrs. Prowse?”

“They’re talking to lots of people in the village.”

“About Sybella.”

“Yes, darling, about Sybella.”

Miranda slid onto his knee, something he realised suddenly she rarely did anymore.

“Did the policemen talk to you, Daddy?”

“Yes, they were here yesterday.”

“This is like when Mummy died, isn’t it?” She twisted her head and regarded him with serious eyes.

“Only a little teeny-tiny bit. But you mustn’t worry. The police only want to find who hurt Sybella. It’s very sad for Colm and Celia and Declan, but we’re going to keep on living here in Thornford and you’ll start last half of term next week and Mrs. Prowse will keep trying to stuff us with rich food, and everything will be as it should be.” He rocked her on his knee.

“Will they want to speak to me?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said lightly to the back of her head, recalling his repugnance at Bristol CID questioning her, the little girl who’d lost her mother and who had no useful information anyway.

“That’s good.”

“Why? Is there something you wanted to tell them?”

“No,” she said slowly. He could see her wrinkle her nose. “They look scary. One of them has bumps on his face.”

Tom laughed. “Now, you mustn’t be unkind. People can’t help the way they look sometimes.”

But Miranda was no longer attentive.
“Regarde, Papa.”
She pointed to the French doors, partially opened to the garden, flanked by urns of pink and purple geraniums.
“Monsieur Pike s’en vient par ici.”

Fred Pike was indeed coming their way, up the brick path through the sun-drenched lawn at a trot brisker than Tom had ever seen in the man.

“Father?” he gasped, holding one hand to his chest, leaning into the study and peering into the relative darkness. “Father …”

“Fred? Are you all right?” The man appeared to be having a heart attack. Tom lifted Miranda off his lap.

“Father, you must come—” An adverb died on his lips as he took a step into the study and noticed the child. His lined face strained to temper alarm as he sought to catch his breath. “Father, I think there’s something you ought to see.”

“What is it?”

Fred glanced again at Miranda in an agony of indecision.

“Miranda,” Tom said, “why don’t you go and have a wash and I’ll see to Mr. Pike, okay?”

“May I come?” she asked.

“No!” Fred’s tone was uncharacteristically sharp.

“No,” Tom repeated more gently, rising from his chair. “Best not. I won’t be long.”

He followed Fred out the door and into the garden. “Whatever is it?” he asked, but received no reply as Fred picked up speed and led him at an increasing pace across the lawn, down the steps to the millpond, west along the shaded path, and then up the stone steps to the churchyard, wending between the gravestones until they reached the southwest corner, in which he had been toiling earlier that morning.