It may have been a picturesque, crisp January morning in the Cotswolds, but Logan Ashburn was less than impressed.
He crawled from the crushed husk of his rented Fararri, trying his best to curb the bleeding from his chest.
Logan seethed, inching ever closer to the safety of the bank across the road.
His vision began to blur; he was losing too much blood.
Logan turned his head towards a man clad in black running away down the track.
“You have betrayed me,” Logan said with as much breath as he could muster.
The man did not answer; he kept on running until he was out of sight.
Logan touched the grassy verge opposite him and managed to pull himself up.
If this were how it was going to end, Logan would never have agreed to steal a rented Fararri yesterday afternoon.
He groaned, hugging his chest as tightly as he could.
Logan scanned his surroundings, but he was the only one around for miles.
He emitted a loud, guttural scream, hoping someone might emerge from their cottage.
“Help me,” Logan roared. “Call an ambulance, somebody! I’m going to die!”
He deeply inhaled and exhaled, observing the cottages for any sign of life, but there was no one.
Logan gazed down at the sandy soil beneath him and the particles swimming in the streams of his own blood.
“Just when you need a sleepy village not to be so sleepy,” Logan said to himself.
He fell to the ground, his body no longer having the energy to hold itself upright.
Accepting his fate, Logan gazed up at the sun shining through the trees, which were only shades of light in his eyes.
A small smile appeared on his face before all life finally left him.
Logan’s body stayed lying by the side of the road for a few hours before a fluorescent yellow Lamborghini pulled up outside one of the cottages opposite.
“Andy Serkis is in talks to adapt all of George Orwell’s back catalogue into goofy, family-friendly animated films starring Seth Rogan, Jack Black, and other distinguished actors of their ilk,” a BBC News Announcer said on the radio. “He’s also considering giving the same treatment to the Diary of Anne Frank, with no opposition so far.”
Doctor Fabian Gilbert, DPhil, dentist extraordinaire, turned off the radio and exited the car.
He removed his signature red backpack from the boot of his car and prepared to enter his house when he stopped in his tracks.
There, supine by the side of the road, was a blood-stained body.
Fabian stared at the poor man wide-eyed, his heart racing as he whipped out his phone and dialled 999.
“Hello, I need to speak to the police, please,” Fabian said, trying to steady his breathing.
He gulped as Gloucestershire Constabulary finally answered his call.
“Good morning, I’d like to report a murder,” Fabian said, rubbing the back of his head as he observed the blood-stained body before him.
“There’s a young man outside my house that isn’t in a good way,” he said, edging closer towards the body. “I believe someone has stabbed him, as blood is oozing out of his chest.”
Fabian examined a minuscule weed emerging through the gravel spree beneath his feet.
He kicked it until the weed sprouted from the soil, then he placed it in his pocket.
Fabian smiled as the phone call ended. “Great, thank you.”
He hung up and wandered over to the body.
Fabian analysed Logan’s corpse, as if he were a professional detective rather than a dentist.
He gazed at his gold-plated Lamborghini.
Fabian sighed, glad he had parked his car before any of Logan’s stray blood spoiled the bodywork.
He inspected Logan’s clothes, seeing whether he could find any Sherlock-esque insights into this murder victim before the Police arrived.
Fabian rubbed his chin as he observed the corpse’s cheap attire.
‘Clearly a beggar,’ Fabian thought to himself as he returned to the cosy confines of his cottage, but then he espied the bashed-up Ferrari on the other side of the road.
Fabian wrinkled his brow. “Then again”
He crept over to the vehicle, and gave it a thorough inspection.
At last, he reached the windscreen, and the large sheet of paper stuck to it exposed the car as a rental.
Fabian rolled his eyes. “Beggar.”
As he unlocked the door to his cottage and finally stepped over the threshold, he glanced at Logan’s body.
Fabian leaned against his home and shook his head, sighing all the while.
This man may have been a beggar, but there was still a chance that someone out there was mourning him.
He turned his focus to the Lambourgini, and noticed a speck on the car’s fin, spoiling its general aesthetic.
Fabian whipped out his handkerchief and buffed the spot until it disappeared.
Smiling at his handywork, Fabian made his way into the building, but not before taking one final glance at the corpse, with his left arm splayed out beside him.
Fabian frowned, and silently closed the door.
Every morning without fail, the Reverend Simon Abernathy went on a morning constitutional around his Parish before starting his day’s work.
He often hummed his favourite hymns as he paraded around the villages he cared for, and today was no exception.
Simon breathed in the crisp winter air as he traversed into Middle Strangling, a village that was every inch the epitome of the Cotswolds.
“Good morning, Charles,” Simon said to a man repairing the thatch on his roof.
“Morning, Vicar,” Charles said in return, clinging to his ladder for dear life.
Simon toured the other cottages, greeting everyone that he saw.
“Hello, Clarice, enjoying a sumptuous breakfast sandwich, I see,” he said to a woman biting into a bacon sarnie outside her immaculate home.
She could not speak as her mouth was full, so she just smiled and nodded.
Simon continued on his way, enjoying the music created by unseen birds in the trees above him.
The journey was as pleasant as it usually was, until he passed a gold-plated Lamborghini parked outside a particularly gorgeous building.
He stopped in his tracks, staring wide-eyed ahead of him.
Gloucestershire Constabulary had blocked off the road with tape, and people in paper overalls were examining something.
Simon gazed back behind him, before tiptoeing over to the crime scene.
“Good morning, team,” Simon said, rubbing his hands as he approached the tape. “May I know what’s going on here?”
Rachel Donnavan, Crime Scene Investigator for Gloucestershire Constabulary, glared at the vicar.
“There’s been a murder,” she said. “You need to go back.”
Simon frowned.
“Oh dear,” he said, observing the poor fellow the scientists were inspecting. “Wasn’t one of mine, was it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Rachel said, shaking her head. “Please leave.”
Simon scrutinised the carcass’s face. “No, I don’t remember seeing him in church.”
“If there’s anything you want me to do, I’ll be only too happy to assist,” Simon said, clasping his hands together and bowing.
Rachel gawped at the reverend. “Yeah, there is something I want you to do.”
“Really,” Simon said, beaming. “What might that be?”
“I want you out,” Rachel said, swatting the Vicar away like an irritating fly. “Go. Let us do our work.”
“Fine, fine,” Simon said as he started to wander away towards Lower Strangling, his home.
But as he did so, he espied the bashed-up Ferrari on the opposite bank.
“Hello,” Simon said as he crept over to the car. “I didn’t notice this before.”
“Don’t touch that,” Rachel cried. “It’s evidence in the case.”
“I see,” Simon said, observing a shopping cart that someone had dumped down the bank behind it. “Is the trolley also needed as evidence?”
Rachel raised an eyebrow and grimaced. “No, I didn’t know one was there.”
Simon grinned as he pulled the trolley up from the bank. “Wonderful, I’ll hand this over to Tesco.”
But before he did, he examined the car. “Is this connected to that poor chap’s predicament, do you think?”
Rachel swaggered over to the Vicar. “In short, yes. We believe the car was stolen by the victim and a co-conspirator, who then stabbed him when the operation was botched.”
“Hmm,” Simon said, scrutinising small details in the car.
Rachel crossed her arms and glared at Simon. “You really need to go now, Reverend. This is a working crime scene.”
“I do believe I’ve seen this car before,” the Vicar said as he backed away from the car. “Yes. About a year ago. Parked outside the Hangman’s Noose. A small child dropped a pot of cream on it, if I recall.”
“Interesting,” Rachel said. “But the car is a rental; anyone may have had it within the past year, so your anecdote isn’t relevant.”
“I was merely telling you where I saw the car before,” Simon said, clutching the trolley. “Good luck with the investigation, and God bless.”
Rachel watched as Simon wheeled the trolley back through Middle Strangling and into the horizon.
She narrowed her eyes and growled before returning to the crime scene.
Rachel gazed at Logan’s blood-stained corpse, then at the dented Ferrari.
Yes, she thought, Gloucestershire Constabulary had a complicated puzzle on its hands.
After he had returned safely to Lower Strangling, the village where he lived, Simon popped into the Hangman’s Noose for a pint.
“Then my constitutional was curtailed by a horrific crime scene,” Simon said, taking a sip of Gin & Tonic.
John Granger, one of Simon’s parishioners and the landlord of the Hangman’s Noose, recoiled at the thought.
“Do you know what happened?” Sarah Peterson, another one of the Vicar’s flock, said as she primmed her notebook.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Simon said, adjusting his position. “Murder, as it happens. A suspected stabbing.”
Sarah nodded as she jotted the news down.
Simon leant on the bar. “I don’t suppose any of you remember an incident involving a rented Fararri last year?”
“You mean when a kid splashed some cream onto it?” Dave Peterson, Sarah’s husband, said as he sipped his Throckmorton Ale. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, that same car was present at the crime scene, completely crushed beyond all recognition.’
Sarah gasped as she furiously scribbled in her notepad.
“Wow,” Dave said, gawping at Simon. “Did they manage to clean the stain off in the end?”
“I admit that wasn’t the focus of my attention,” Simon said. “But I believe the car was spotless, aside from the compressed bonnet.”
“Right,” Dave said, nodding. “Good to know.”
Just then, a young man in his early forties slipped into the pub and crept over to the tables.
“Morning, guys,” he said as he ensconced himself in a corner.
John harumphed and raised his glass to the stranger.
Simon swivelled to observe the visitor better.
“Excuse me one moment,” he said to his friends, before he leapt off his stool and slid into a seat opposite the man.
“Hello,” Simon said, grinning at the patron like a Cheshire Cat and holding out a hand. “I’m Simon, the Parish Priest. Welcome to Lower Strangling.”
The man stared at Simon for a moment before reluctantly shaking his hand.
“I’m afraid I don’t recognise you,” Simon said, taking a swig of his G&T. “Are you just visiting or?”
“Yeah, I’m just visiting,” the man said, perusing the menu in front of him. “It looks nice.”
Simon espied a handle sticking out of the man’s pocket, and a dark splodge beneath it.
“May I know your name?” Simon said, pulling his seat closer to the table.
“Er, yeah,” the man said, gawping at the Vicar. “I’m Gary, Gary Moody.”
“Good to know,” Simon said, giggling awkwardly to himself.
Gary stifled a yawn and examined the small notepad and pencil that came with the menu.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” He said, grimacing at the station.
“You write your order on it and hand it over to John,” Simon said, beaming.
“A bit old-fashioned, innit,” Gary said. “Can’t I just tell him? Or scan a QR code?”
“I’m afraid not,” Simon said, shaking his head. “Pen and pencil only.”
Gary shrugged and scribbled down his order.
“How was your day?” Simon said. “Do anything exciting?”
“Oh, you know, stuff,” Gary said, easing himself out of his seat. “Not much else.”
Simon watched Gary stride over to John and hand him his pad.
He squinted at his prey and rubbed his temples.
‘Get in the zone,’ he thought. ‘Τhat’s what Janet would say.’
Janet Foster was formerly Simon΄s Administrator at St Gerald the Damned, but then finally got a place on Scotland Yard’s Detective Training Course.
Now she was in London, well on her way to achieving her goal of becoming a Police Detective Inspector.
Simon knew God had allowed him to make Janet proud and put on his own sleuth hat; he just needed to focus and ask Gary the right questions.
Gary rejoined Simon and rested his head in his arms.
“You’re out of firewood,” Gary said, gazing at Simon.
The vicar furrowed his brow. “Excuse me?”
“You’re out of firewood,” Gary reiterated, pointing at a fire in danger of fizzling out. “Your fire needs restoking.”
Simon gazed at the pub’s fireplace, and the few smouldering embers within it, and chortled.
“Yes, I’ll let John know in due course.”
Simon grinned at Gary, sipping his Gin & Tonic.
“So, Gary. Do you have any friends?”
Gary grimaced at the Vicar. “Why do you want to know that?”
“I’m just curious,” Simon said, deciding to peruse the menu since he was there. “I like to know everything about everyone who visits the village.”
Gary began to sweat. “That’s a bit creepy, innit?”
“I wouldn’t say so,” Simon said, gesturing to the group of people at the bar. “We’re all friends here, and we want to be friends with the tourists as well.”
Gary’s eyes widened, his irises but tiny islands in the middle of a sea of white.
He glanced out of the window.
“I should probably get going,” Gary said, starting to rise. “My wife is waiting for me.”
“Why leave so soon?” Simon said, gesturing for Gary to sit down. “You have ordered a meal.”
“Tell John to cancel it,” Gary said, sidling towards the exit. “I can’t keep my wife waiting any longer.”
“She can wait, I’m sure,” Simon said. “Come, sit a while longer.”
Gary gulped, then slumped back into his seat.
Simon scribbled his order on the provided notepad.
John arrived at the table and handed Gary a Throckmorton Ale.
Gary shakily raised his glass as a token of thanks and drank from it.
“Do you like cars?” Simon said, flinging his note into John’s hand.
Gary stared at Simon, agog, pointing between the two. Simon told Gary that he only accepted orders at the bar.
“Are you gonna keep talking all the while I’m here?” Gary said, clinging to the table.
“Not all the while,” Simon said. “Some of the time I hope to hear you talk.”
Gary’s eyes darted around the room, observing everyone in sight.
“Would you be more comfortable if I took this off?” Simon said, removing his dog collar. “I can assure you I’m not on official business.”
“How quick is the service here?” Gary said, squinting at Simon. “I really am on a short schedule.”
“It will come in due course,” Simon said, glancing at his watch.
“The food better come quickly,” Gary said, sweating profusely. “Otherwise, I do really need to go.”
“It really is endearing that you’re so anxious to return home to your dear wife,” Simon said. “But I’m sure she’ll understand that you wanted to have a lovely pub lunch before returning. She may even be quite jealous.”
Gary laughed awkwardly, brushing the sweat off his forehead.
He jumped at the sound of a door opening.
Paul Stiller, Lower Strangling’s affable wine merchant, stepped into the warmth of the Noose.
“Hello, everyone,” Paul said, striding over to the bar.
“You know, I’m just gonna go now,” Gary said, rising out of his seat. “You can cancel my order, or just eat it yourself. Nice knowing you.”
Before Simon could stop him, Gary sprinted across the pub and slipped through the door.
Paul watched as the man ran away.
“What on Earth was that all about?” Paul said, placing himself on a stool.
Simon lowered his head and sighed, shaking it.
“I believe he stabbed his friend to death very early this morning,” he said, lumbering over to the bar with limp hands.
Paul wrinkled his forehead and tilted his noggin, “Eh?”
“I came across a dreadful crime scene on my morning constitutional through Middle Strangling, involving a bloodstained corpse and a crashed stolen Fararri,” Simon said.
“Some Happy New Year this has turned out to be,” Paul said, swerving towards John and ordering his pint.
“I was sure our friend there seemed a little suspicious, and sure enough, he had a blood-stained knife in his pocket, so I tried to make him confess to the crime via the medium of polite conversation,” Simon said, before sighing and shaking his head. “But sadly, I have to admit that I’m simply not as good at getting people to confess their sins as the Police and the Catholics.”
John harumphed and drank his Throckmorton Ale. “If only Janet were here to sort out the situation.”
“She will be back in due time,” Simon said, finishing the dregs of his G&T. “In the meantime, we’ll just have to hope that Gloucestershire Constabulary know what they’re doing.”
With that, he handed John his empty glass and returned to the table, in anticipation of his sumptuous pub lunch.
Tall, spindly trees merged into each other as Gary ran the hell away from Lower Strangling.
A group of German tourists ambled up the woodland path ahead of him, pulling themselves along on Nordic Poles.
Gary barged through them, making a member of the party fall to the ground.
“Hey,” the leader of the clan called to Gary. “Watch where you’re going!”
Gary ground to a halt and hobbled back to the tourists.
“I’m sorry, I swear,” Gary said, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “I need to get out of here. It’s not safe for me anymore.”
The German squinted at Gary and laughed. “Ok, I guess.”
The rambling group watched as Gary ran into the horizon and disappeared.
They gawped at each other, and their leader shrugged, before they powered along the country track towards their end goal: the Hangman’s Noose.
Gary’s heart pumped at a million miles a second as he ran, causing great pain in his chest and throat.
One of his feet landed on a lone pair of scissors someone had dropped on the path, causing him to slide over.
He sat up, slowly exhaling and inhaling.
A car drove up to him, but fortunately, he backed up to the bank before it could run him over.
Once Gary had regained some energy and his heart had calmed, he slowly walked away.
But then he heard the distant sound of a police siren, and his vascular organ shot back into action.
He zoomed along the path, not sure exactly which direction he was going.
The sirens grew louder, and Gary was sure he could see flashing blue lights in his peripheral vision.
He gave the police a good challenge, but then a car’s silhouette loomed behind him.
Gary slowed down, limping down the road, until finally he fainted.
Detective Sargent Becky Fernshaw stepped over to him and slipped his hands into cuffs.
“Gary Moody, you are under arrest on suspicion of theft and murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you don’t say, when questioned, something that you later rely on in court.”
Gary groaned as Becky picked him up.
“How did you know my name?” Gary said, scrunching his face. “And that I was here?”
“We got a tip off from someone in the area,” Becky said as she dragged him to the police car. “Someone with a blood-stained knife in their pocket that’s still wet.”
Gary gazed at the handle sticking out of his pocket, and the red blotch beneath it, and growled. “It was that vicar, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Becky said, smiling as she pushed Gary into the back of the car. “You really should’ve had the Fish and Chips.”
Becky drove off towards Gloucestershire Constabulary’s HQ.
Gary watched the trees sweep past him until they dissolved into water.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Gary said, tears streaming down his face. “The vicar didn’t know I was involved in any crime. He was jumping to conclusions.”
“Save your tears for prison,” Becky said, laughing. “Simon saw the crime scene this morning, and that you just happened to be in the area with a blood-stained knife in your pocket is just too much of a coincidence.”
“It’s not a knife, it’s a paintbrush,” Gary said, writing in his seat. “I didn’t have time to wash the red paint off it.”
“You really need to get better at lying,” Becky said, cackling wildly.
Gary gnashed his teeth as he tried to free himself from his seat, then suddenly stooped.
“Wait, how did you know the vicar’s name?”
But then he scowled, and his face turned red.
“You’re pally with him, aren’t you?”
He jumped up and down in his seat, growling. “He’s in on it! I knew I shouldn’t have talked to him.”
Becky didn’t react to Gary’s sudden outburst; she laughed as she drove him to the station.
“Well, Si, it seems you came good after all,” John said that evening, leaning on the bar of the Hangman’s Noose as he usually did.
“Indeed, fortunately, Gary wasn’t that far out of Lower Strangling when I called the Police,” Simon said, savouring his pint of Throckmorton Ale.
Dave sighed, frowning at his glass. “I suppose the scrapyard will take the Ferrari now.”
“Yes, yes, I suppose it would,” Simon said. “Were you interested in borrowing it?”
“No,” Dave said, hunched over his pint. “I just feel terrible about it. First, a child dropped some cream onto it; a year later, it was stolen and crashed into a ditch. It’s just no way to live.”
“I agree,” Eleanor, Dave’s precocious sixteen-year-old daughter, said. “It could make for a very depressing Pixar film.”
The group around the bar subconsciously held a one-minute silence for the battered-up vehicle, before a new arrival changed the mood.
“Hi,” Jo Whitely, the sole gardener in Lower Strangling’s Botanic Gardens, said as she leapt into the pub and bounded over to her friends.
“How’s the man of the hour,†she said as she gave Simon a squeeze around his shoulders, and perched herself on a spare stool.
“I’m doing rather well,” Simon said, taking another sip of his pint. “I admit my day was rather underwhelming considering how it started, but I’d accept that over it being a bad one.”
“Janet’s really proud of you,” Jo said as John slid a glass of cider to her. “I told her everything earlier, and she’s impressed.”
Simon beamed and nodded his head. “Well, when Janet returns to Lower Strangling as Gloucestershire Constabulary’s newest Detective Inspector, I would be more than happy to assist.”
John raised his glass. “I think we should raise a glass to Si, Lower Strangling’s very own crime-fighting priest.”
Everyone at the bar held their glasses aloft.
“To Simon,” they said, filling the pub with the sound of their clinking glasses.
Simon gazed at the drink in his hand, a smile on his face.
“Well, I suppose the only thing left to say now is, let’s drink!”
The Robinsonverse 