Southend U3A

Jane smiled. She would indeed be delighted to spend many happy hours with this wonderful old man and learn secrets. After all prising secrets from people was her stock in trade. Was it not?

As Mr Darnell drove away Jane retrieved the cottage key from under the flower pot and let herself in.

Dropping her bags in the hall she found her way to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Here she found a note from Mrs Grady, the village help. It informed her that she had lit a fire in the parlour and left a casserole in the Aga for her dinner and an apple pie and cake in the larder.

Jane carried her tea tray with cake into the parlour and snuggled down into a large comfy chair with her book. Sighing with satisfaction she thought, This is the life.

Lunchtime on Tuesday found her at the vicarage and she was shown the hidden passage. John's company was stimulating and true to his word he gave her all his research notes saying that there was no time like the present for her to start on her book.

She spent the next few days exploring the village, renewing old acquaintances, typing pages of the draft book and discussing the content at length with John.

On Sunday morning it happened. John dropped dead whilst raining fire and brimstone on the hapless congregation. The funeral was to be held on Tuesday and the rumour was that the new incumbent, a vicar from Leeds, was to move into the vicarage late Monday evening so that he could preside over the funeral. His wife was to join him in a week or so.

Jane sat at the back of the church at John's funeral. No one had seen the new vicar and all the congregation fidgeted in anticipation. Here he was . . . he strode down the aisle and mounted the pulpit and began to introduce himself.

Jane needed no introduction. His face was engraved in her memory. It was her beloved James, Captain James Ainsworth. Her lover, who had marched off to war and never returned. Posted missing in action, presumed dead.

She nearly fainted. Jane sat in a trance listening, but not hearing his words. How could this be? She had loved him to distraction and nearly lost her reason when she heard he was presumed dead. She had kept his photograph by her bedside and spurned the advances of other men as none ever matched her lost love. She was now 42 years of age. Why had he not got in touch? What had happened to his love for her? Married? Ditched in such a cruel manner? Love and hate warred in her heaving bosom. Ice cold rage won! Her love withered on the spot and his face appeared as only a parody of the man she had loved so deeply. Now she hated him with the same passion as her love for him had once been. All thoughts turned to revenge but she needed to hear him condemn himself with words from his own lips. When the funeral was over she would waylay James in the cemetery.

When she introduced herself, as he had not recognised Jane, he was as stunned as she had been to see him earlier. If this was not hurt enough, what she heard next drained the last vestiges of love from her injured sole and turned her once loving heart to pure stone.

That she had become, in his own words, so old and frumpy was why he had not recognised her. Yes, he was married. He told her the tale that during the war he had been near a shell burst. Stunned he had wandered far from the battlefield, memory lost. A beautiful French girl and her family had nursed him to health but not informed the authorities as Yvette and he had fallen in love and they did not want to be parted. Time passed. In 1918 his memory returned and Jane was remembered but not loved. John hearing that the war was soon to end decided he must rejoin the army or be charged as a deserter. By the time he was repatriated with his unit the war was truly over and no one followed up the gap in his service record.

Being a coward he failed to write or visit either Jane or his widowed sister but married Yvette and sailed for England and studied to become a vicar.

Jane listened in stoic silence giving no hint of her present feelings but extracted a promise from James that they would meet in the vicarage the following evening to talk some more to enable both parties to gain closure and move on in peace and amity. This of course was a ruse and she marched away with a stony heart and a grim resolve to be avenged. In the solace of the cottage she wove her plans and gathered a few essential items. It was lucky that she was prescribed Laudanum on a regular basis by her doctor back home to help her sleep, and that she had brought a plentiful supply with her. It was also fortunate that she had brought a bottle of wine intended for her and Amelia.

At seven pm she made her way to the back door of the vicarage. When James opened the door Jane smiled and said she had brought a bottle of wine to celebrate old memories and new beginnings. As a parting gift she wanted to show him a secret passage that started in the first floor library. They could open the wine there and raise a toast to old times before they parted forever.

Once in the library Jane quickly poured each of them a glass of wine but secretly added a hefty dose of Laudanum, enough to kill, to his glass.

'I'm glad that you are taking this so well old girl.' We had a fling but it was not love was it? You will have to meet Yvette I'm sure you would like her. Now there was a girl worth marrying.' Raising his full glass he raised a toast, 'No hard feelings old thing?' and downed his in one.

With a smile pinned to her face and fingernails drawing blood from the palms of her hand Jane strode over to the wood panelling and pressed a certain embossed rose. A panel near the fireplace slid open to reveal a staircase.

'Come on, James. You first.' She handed James a torch and he started to descend. 'Jane, old girl, I feel a bit woozy. I . . .' at this he lurched forward and tumbled down the rest of the stairs. Jane followed calmly. She knelt and felt his pulse. Nothing. She listened for a heartbeat. Nothing. She picked up the torch and undid a latch on the door ahead. Pushing hard it swung open to reveal the laundry room with its coppers and a disused well with a wooden lid. She hauled James's lifeless corpse through the door which from this side was disguised as a wooden wall with shelves and cupboards. With the cover off the well she made one last, huge effort and dragged his body over the lip and into the well. It was a long time before she heard a splash.

Tidying up as she went, she retraced her footsteps. After washing up the glasses she left taking all incriminating evidence with her. Under cover of darkness she made her way back to the cottage.

Jane spent the rest of her holiday trying to help the police discover the whereabouts of the vanished vicar. In the end all that could be said was that James Ainsworth, vicar of Thorpe Hesley was missing, presumed dead.

Although it was not a proven murder, it was the only case Jane Marble did not solve in a long and illustrious career.