Part 1
There have been various rumours recently of strange happenings in the Fawcett Magna area – lurid tales of weird creatures, pagan rituals and such like. With so many problems to deal with, Sir Rufus has tended to dismiss such wild talk as nonsense.
However Temerity Ping, the SIS agent allegedly on leave-of-absence and currently a house-guest of Sir Rufus, is less dismissive. Her father, Dr Paddy Ping, is the GP in Fawcett Magna and he’s been keeping her informed of events in his area. She now has a photo, recently sent to her by her father and taken by a local reporter which she feels needs investigating. Sir Rufus is submerged in preparations to prevent a socialist invasion of Borsetshire so remains unable and, indeed unwilling, to deal with spooks and phantoms so Temerity decides to visit her father and see what is afoot.
The photo was taken by Roger Gently, a reporter on the Borchester Informer. He was anxious to get some practice with his VN Press camera, recently purchased secondhand. He planned to do some nocturnal investigation of the woods in the Fawcett Magna area. After four nights of cold, damp and fruitless wandering, he struck lucky. Spotting movement on the edge of the woods, he took a hasty photo. The VN’s flash gun fired and what Roger saw in that fleeting moment caused him to turn and run, not stopping until he was safe behind his own front door.
When Roger’s photo was printed in The Informer, the reaction was not what he hoped for or expected. Instead of urgent action by the authorities, it was greeted with amusement. Soon groups of people wearing papier-mâché animal heads were a regular sight in Fawcett Magna. Roger was pestered by them mockingly asking if he’d like to take their photo. He recognised most of the voices but just when he was beginning to accept that he’d made a fool of himself, he would be accosted by a group with voices he didn’t recognise and he felt an aura of fear emanating from within the animal heads.
Roger Gently was in despair when his photo of strange creatures in the woods was not taken seriously but everything changed when Temerity Ping arrived. Until then her father, Paddy Ping, and the local vicar were the only two local people sympathetic to Roger but they were at a loss what to do. After chatting to them both for an hour or so and making some notes, Temerity sat back in her chair, took a sip of her gin and tonic (they were in the snug of the Rampant Sparrow, the local pub) and said “Well it’s obvious what your first move is – call a meeting of The Grumblers.”
Paddy and the vicar exchanged glances and her father, obviously disconcerted, replied “How do you know about The Grumblers?”
She smiled the enigmatic smile that she’d learned as a priority after joining SIS, tapped her nose with her index finger, gave a wink then stood up. Gathering her notebook and pen into her shoulder bag she said briskly
“I’ll leave you to it then – must get back to Borchester.” She gave her father a kiss, nodded to the vicar and strode out of the pub. The two men looked at each other, the vicar said “So that’s your daughter then”, Paddy nodded then they both burst out laughing before the vicar said “Right, I’ll get The Grumblers together and we’ll see what’s what.”
The Grumblers were a kind of informal club of local men, mainly middle-aged, who met irregularly to moan about the state of the world and how it could be improved. The movers and shakers of Fawcett Magna were the core of the group; the vicar, the doctor, the bank manager, Roger Gently the reporter and Colonel Savage, retired from the 3rd Battalion The Honourable Regiment of Felpersham Peculiars. Most of them had contacts in the outside world that covered a surprising range of expertises.
It was the vicar who suggested that he contact an old friend who he had known from Cambridge days. They were both studying Divinity but whereas the vicar had followed a predictable path into the church, his friend had immersed himself in a study of the paranormal. After a long and enjoyably disputatious meeting of The Grumblers in the Rampant Sparrow, it was eventually agreed that the vicar contact his old friend for advice. The hope was that he would make a visit to Fawcett Magna to lend on-the-spot assistance. Rather than reply by letter, the vicar’s friend appeared in person the day after the vicar sent his letter. Even better, he’d brought a colleague.
The vicar’s friend was called Professor Magnus although on his card he simply had Magnus P.I. He explained to Colonel Savage that the initials stood for Paranormal Investigator and not Private Investigator. His colleague, also an academic, was Dr Sigurd Nocraties, Academiehoogleraar, Department of the Occult at the University of Utrecht.
With these two experts on hand, able and willing to indulge in direct action, The Grumblers proposed an immediate start on a serious night time search, starting with the grounds of The Old Manor, located just outside the village. It’s derelict and the grounds have run wild. A lot of the foliage looks distinctly foreign, a result of seed hunters sending all sorts of stuff back from oversea in the 19th century.
Apart from the two experts, the search group consisted of the vicar, the Reverend Mother (the unfortunate combination of his title and surname caused the vicar much embarrassment – to his friends, he was known as AE. Why? It’s a long story for another time), Roger the reporter, Dr Ping, Seldom Penitent, the bank manager and Colonel Savage. Once the decision for action was made, they were desperate to get started with the result that they met outside the gates to the Manor park with a motley assortment of equipment – preparations had been haphazard. Most of the participants had improvised a weapon of some sort, there was even a couple of revolvers (although their reliability was in doubt) . On the advice of Magnus P.I., there were various items thought to be useful against paranormal adversaries – silver knives, crucifixes and, bizarrely, bags of salt. On the other hand, only Magnus and Reverend Mother had thought to bring a lantern on this moonless night.
Before setting off, the vicar reminded his companions that they were acting completely unofficially and that whatever they encountered may be no more than pranksters so resorting to violence, especially involving firearms, must be a last resort. Everyone nodded wisely.
The View From the Hill 