Chapter 1
There once was a small church that sat on a small hill in a small village.
Except, the small church that sat upon the small hill in the small village was actually not that small.
The hill – a rise, really – was also a decent height, and the village was actually average-sized.
Right, let us start again. The church, which, to be fair, was larger than several others in a ten-mile radius, was on a slight (yes, let’s go with that) rise in a village of indeterminate size.
Its vicar, however, we can describe with much more precision. He was around his early-to-mid-forties, which made him a baby compared to the usual ages of Church of England vicars – and was not unattractive. He had curly strawberry-blond hair that he wore a little too long and had a face that was a little too unevenly textured to be classically handsome. His body was strong from years of half marathons for charity and abstemious avoidance of Mildred from the Women’s Institute’s ever-present scones at parish council meetings.
This aforementioned vicar made his way out of the rectory on a sunny spring morning, whistled as he walked down the path, stopped at the gate, and in a flight of fancy (making sure no one saw him), vaulted the gate instead of opening it, landing gracefully on the other side. “Still got it,” he whispered to himself while also running a hand along the arse of his trousers to make sure he hadn’t ripped his second-best chinos in the process.
The walk to the church was about fifty yards, and the vicar continued to whistle tunelessly as he made his way across the grass. He stopped at the door to the nave, next to where the glass-fronted bulletin board for parish announcements was catching the sun, and checked hisown reflection. He fastidiously manoeuvred his hair into place. The vicar was a vain man, something vicars were not supposed to be, what with the being all up in God’s business thing and vows to do good and the like. But no vicar was perfect; even members of the clergy had to delete ‘hot-babe-on-babe-action.com’ from their web browser histories occasionally.
Our vicar, who was christened Jethro, went by Jed, and was nicknamed JedRev by the local village, was one such man. He had cultivated an air about himself – he could be seen in the organic shop in Sittingston ruminating over which type of quinoa was less harmful to Bolivian peasants or completing one of his aforementioned half marathons to raise money for dyslexic Azerbaijani orphans.
He was also occasionally seen in Davey’s – a less than salubrious drinking establishment in Sittingston (across the road from the organic shop, to be precise) where he had downed four vodkas. He’d have his hand on a fellow customer’s knee, slurring that they should come back to his place, and he’d help them see God.
But back to today. He opened the door, ceased his out-of-tune whistling finally, and instead turned on the little radio that sat on the windowsill. Out came the tunes of 98.1 FM, Dorset’s easy listening station with Jonny T and Marla in the mornings. JedRev had once been given a medal by Marla after coming third in a half marathon. She’d eyed his muscular thighs.
JedRev wandered through the back of the church, noticing where Mrs Crocker, the cleaning lady, had not poked her hoover and cloth into, so he could inform her she needed to do a bit better. He had inherited Mrs Crocker from the previous vicar, and frankly, much like his selection of brandy in the drawer of his desk, Jed wouldn’t mind her being poured out.
With these thoughts occupying his rather small brain, he didn’t hear the door open again. He didn’t hear the soft footsteps on the stone floor, nor the sound of a candleholder being picked up off a table in the back room. And, as the person holding it was good at silences, he didn’t hear them turning it over in their hands to check its weight and give a few whacks to the air to see if it had good aerodynamics before they decided they were satisfied with it. He did, however, hear a tiny creak as whoever it was stepped off the stone flooring and onto a wooden step. “Mrs Crocker, is that you? You’re early today!”
There was a dull thud and then a groan. The sound of footsteps, and then JedRev sank to the floor, a pool of blood emanating from the wound on his head. The attacker looked at the body lying on the floor, and then down to their glove-clad hand, where they still held the candleholder. They gave a small shrug and decided to give him a few more whacks for good measure.
Chapter 2
I have never been sporty.
The act of physical exertion is not something I have ever thoughtGee whiz, getting out of breath and sweaty, that’s something I wish my life had more ofabout.
And yet … yet, here I am. Running. Running through a field. “Oh, Jesus,” I cried as I reached the crest of the hill.
“Two minutes to go, you’re doing great!” said the American-accented woman in my pocket.
“Fuck off, Brenda, or whatever your name is,” I snapped. Beside me, Kenny ran along, happily oblivious to my near death.
This was torture. But I kept going. That’s when I saw them – and what a sight they got to see in return: me in a sleeveless T-shirt and running shorts, red as a tomato, sweating profusely as I jogged (very slowly) up a hill with my dog running rings around me.
“Hi, Arden!” Rita Parkinson called out from the cab of her tractor. She swung out of the open compartment door, while her husband, John, drove. “You’re doing so well. We’ve been watching you. Remember last month, you had to stop and walk up this bit!”
As neighbours, I loved the Parkinsons. They were calm, peaceful people who looked out for you. Rita’s actions as my number one exercise fan, however, were not the best part of my day.
I waved back and then ducked through a hole in the hedge. “Kennedy, come, we’re going this way now!”
Kennedy, my rescue dog, a half Dobermann and half black Alsatian, didn’t even bother to slow down as he bounded through the hedge. He was basically a panzer tank and could have made his way through the Ardennes and into Normandy in less time than it took you to say, “Please stop humping my leg.”
I was never sure I was a dog person, but after the things that had happened over the last few months, I decided that a big beast of a guard dog was probably not the worst idea.
The only flaw in this plan was that Kennedy was more likely to lick things to death than anything else.
I’d also been against the idea of having to train a puppy and deal with their overly energetic chaos. My naturally bleeding heart had told me to try and adopt an older dog who might not be as popular as a younger one.
Kennedy was five and had a little bit of grey around his muzzle, but aside from that, he was as fit as a fiddle, and my plan to get a dog who didn’t have enough energy to run the Iditarod on a daily basis had not been picked up by him.
On the very slim plus side, this meant his need to burn energy had driven me to start running. On the negative side, I now had a dog that was eating me out of house and home, chased the cats if I even thought about taking a day off from exercise and worst of all – did I mention this yet? – made me have to go running.
