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Colonel, I’m just on it now.”
    “Màiri White is likely outside somewhere.” Julia, her face pale, made to dash for the door.
    “We’ll need more than the village bobby, Julia. Stay with me. Let’s not alarm everyone.”
    “Of course, you’re right. Oh, my God. Poor Colm,” Julia murmured. “And Celia … this is going to be dreadful, dreadful for them.”
    “Listen, best I go find them.” They would be among the May Fayre revellers. “You stay here, Julia. Colonel,” Tom addressed the figure on the floor as he listened to the phone ring, “I’m sure Dr. Hennis will fix you up so you’ll be right as rain.”
    “Pleased to be of service,” the colonel said, closing his eyes.
    “I don’t understand—”
    “Diversion, my boy. I shall be a diversion.”

    After alerting the local constabulary, Tom exited the village hall in search of Colm Parry, whom he half expected to be loitering about the stage in preparation for his contribution to the day’s festivities, a reprise of his eighties hit “Bank Holiday,” only without the bubblegum synth-pop backup. Tom had been quite looking forward to the moment when the entire village—minus one or two old poops—gleefully joined in at the chorus. But a brisk walk through the multitudes while trying not to appear anxious gleaned him nothing, so Tom circled back to the hall and reached again for his mobile.
    “Right behind you, mate,” Colm said into his phone, giving Tom a gorgonzola grin when he spun around. “Declan said our Sybella’s been giving you bother.”
    As always since he’d arrived in Thornford, Tom couldn’t help staring for just a split second at Colm Parry and thinking how strange it was to have as his organist and choirmaster a man he’d seen on
Top of the Pops
when he’d been a teenager, who’d stood just behind Sting in the recording of “Do They Know It’s ChristmasTime.” In those days, Colm had been as girlishly pretty as Simon Lebon or George Michael, and you could still see a hint of the cheekbone between the jowls and puffy eyes. A quarter century had brought three stone and a paunch, but Colm still had all his hair, if it was his hair, still spikey, with blond highlights, in a way that denoted a kind of engaging immaturity.
    “Father?” Colm was among those amused by Tom’s surname, or at least pretended to be. “Father?”
    Something in Tom’s face must have sent notice, because Colm’s grin slipped its moorings. “Sybella? She’s all right, isn’t she? My son was on about her kipping in the big drum. Which explains why she didn’t come home last—”
    “Colm,” Tom cut him off, thinking that nothing prepares you for this, not the training in pastoral theology, not counselling or psychology nor the practice of a decade. “Colm,” he repeated, “Sybella isn’t asleep. I am very sorry to have to tell you this, but … we’ve found her dead.”
    Colm’s smile collapsed. A drowned look seeped into his blue eyes as he stared at Tom. “We?” he intoned.
    “Julia Hennis and I.”
    “Oh, God. How? Where? You mean, in the
drum
?” His stare grew incredulous as Tom nodded, then his face crumpled. He turned his back to the crowd and brought a hand to his eyes. Over his shoulder Tom glimpsed Miranda skipping towards him, Madrun in tow. He gave his housekeeper a quick warning shake of the head.
    “Oh, God, how am I going tell Oona?” Colm whispered, following Tom blindly through the doors to the small hall. “I thought she’d be safe down here. I was the one who said she’d be safe …”
    The atmosphere in the hall seemed claustrophobic now, the air simmered by the afternoon sun beating on the roof. “Colm, I’m so sorry.” Julia blinked back tears as Colm stumbled towards the drum.
    “Are you sure?” he whispered, bewildered eyes fixed on the instrument.
    Tom glanced at Julia. “I’m sure,” he replied. “Would you like to—?”
    Colm stretched a hand towards the instrument, then quickly