Midsomer Maiden |1| The Trials of Midsomer

6. Death's Shadow

With the summer of 1999 came many things. Freddie Bullard's twenty-second birthday, for one thing. Manchester United's victory with the Treble, for another. But more importantly, perhaps, than anything else, it heralded the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary of Tom and Joyce Barnaby, which naturally had to be celebrated. The only problem, it seemed, was choosing how to do so.

"You know, you're gonna have to make your mind up soon," Tom pointed out, as he looked in exhaustion over the sheer number of leaflets, pamphlets and brochures littering the kitchen table.

"I know," said Joyce, but she showed no sign of having even a longlist of options.

"Well, how about a round the world cruise?" Tom suggested.

"We can't afford it," she replied, then hesitated. "Can we?"

"Well, we could probably go as far as Malta," he said. His lips twitched. "Of course, we'd have to row back."

Joyce shook her head. "No. No, it's not us."

"Well, how about Paris?" he said, handing her a brochure, then another. "Or Istanbul?"

"You're not still going on about the anniversary, are you?" asked Cully as she entered the kitchen.

"It's twenty-five years, Cully," Joyce reminded her.

She rolled her eyes. "I know, I know."

"These days, you're lucky to get twenty-five weeks," Tom joked.

"Well, I vote for the Orient Express to Venice," Cully said. "Something romantic."

"No," said Joyce, and suddenly she got a look of determination on her face. "I don't think I want to go away at all. Do you know what I want to do?"

Tom, who had been trying unsuccessfully to prompt this sort of decisiveness for at least three weeks, looked at her eagerly. "Oh, please tell us."

"I want to retake my marriage vows," Joyce declared.

Cully frowned. "Do they need retaking?"

"The first time we got married, it was a registry office, and your father was in the middle of a case," Joyce explained.

"Ah, the Pimlico Poisoner," Tom smiled.

Joyce snorted. "You didn't say 'I do', you said 'I've got it!' and that was the last I saw of you until the honeymoon! This time, I want to be the centre of attention. I want flowers and all our friends." She took her daughter's hands. "And I want you to be my maid of honour."

"What, and give you away?"

Tom's lips twitched, and Joyce glanced across at him pre-emptively as he opened his mouth. "Don't you say it." He grinned, and she turned her attention back to Cully. "Yes. Would you?"

Cully smiled. "I'd love to, Mum. I think it's a lovely idea."

"Are you gonna be around?" Tom asked.

"Oh, I was going to tell you," she said, taking a seat at the table. "I got a place on the summer workshop with Simon Fletcher."

Tom glanced at his wife. "Who's he?"

Cully rolled her eyes. "Dad! He's very well known. He's directed at the Royal Court and with the RSC. He's doing a two week summer course at Causton, and I got a place."

"Well, that's settled, then," Joyce decided.

"Is it?" Tom blinked.

She smiled. "Let's book the church!"

***

That weekend, they had arranged to meet with the vicar of the church at Badger's Drift—not because Tom had so enjoyed his previous encounter with the village, but because the church, being a place and not a person, was presumably not as corrupt and unhelpful as the people in it and was actually, in his opinion, rather striking. So it was that the Reverend Stephen Wentworth popped his head in to see his wife at the vicarage that morning. "I'm going over to the church," he told her.