A Murder in Nether Bumble

By Adam Newton

The vicar is dead, and Dan Paige is the prime suspect. Caught in the middle of a murder investigation in the village full of eccentrics, Dan just wants to get on with his two-week vacation on a tropical beach.

All was going well until his car broke down on the way to the airport. Lost in the village of Nether Bumble, he’s discovered behind the pub in the middle of the night, holding a crowbar with blood all over his hands.

The villagers quickly put two and two together when they discover the local vicar has been murdered.

As Dan tries to prove his innocence, he’s hindered by the vicar’s wife, her gardener, and a woman who won’t take no for an answer. Dan’s hopes of relaxing in the sun quickly fade away, but there might be a silver lining in the form of the pub landlord’s daughter.

Unless, of course...she’s actually the murderer.

Set in an English village and the surrounding countryside, this good-natured cand fun murder mystery will delight with its entertaining cast of oddball characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam Newton
• Release date: Sep 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005714949

Adam Newton

Adam G Newton was born in the East Midlands of England in 1975, and enjoys entertaining people and telling stories. He also enjoys drawing people with big noses.He once won money in a competition on the back of a pizza box, and possesses a certificate that proves he knows how to search on Google.He was once in a theatre group. And a band. At the same time.He currently lives in Derbyshire with his wife, two dogs, and a variety of plants, some of which are dead (the plants, not the wife or the dogs). He writes for a selection of websites and endures walks in the countryside.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Modern life sucks. There's nothing more or less to it than that. Quite simply, modern life sucks. Imagine for a moment that you live in the north of England. No, a bit more northern than that. Further. Far enough so your accent is so strong it's almost unintelligible, but not so far enough that you're nearly Scottish. Somewhere around Sunderland, or Newcastle. Let's settle on Middlesbrough.

You spend your entire life safe in the knowledge that should you need to leave the country (for whatever reason, no need to worry about who might have your name on a list, unless it's one of those lists that stops you from getting on a plane, because that could make leaving the country quite difficult) there's an airport just a short distance away. Teesside airport, or Durham Tees Valley airport, or whatever they're calling it now—the fact remains that planes land there, take off there, and transport people to and from the land of the Smoggies.

Now that your imagination is fired, let's also imagine that you have a great need to fly somewhere. Let's imagine that you have some friends (you may need to work at this). You all decide to go on holiday—take a vacation, if you will - to some exotic destination. Perhaps Spain. Perhaps Portugal. Perhaps South Africa. Perhaps Barbados. Perhaps Estonia (the forests are a delight at this time of year). And perhaps your so-called mates book their tickets and are ready to go, and you realise that perhaps you too should have booked your plane ticket. The hotel was no problem due to it being a group booking. It was one of those discount websites, like Wowza or Vouch-argh. Something like that. The room is ready and waiting, all you have to do is hop on a plane. But you left it too late.

The dog got in the fridge. The wheel fell off your car. Your girlfriend dumped you for the window cleaner. Life just kept on getting in the way, and somehow, you entirely forgot to book a plane ticket until the week before you were due to leave.

No problem, you think. You just hop on the internet and do a ticket search. Unfortunately, there's only one ticket left. That's OK, your girlfriend doesn't need a ticket as she's riding around with the window cleaner on his pushbike. She holds the ladder while he does the top windows. No, she doesn't need one. But there remains a problem.

The flight isn't the same one your friends will be taking. It's not even at the same time. They leave at 4pm on a Friday afternoon. Your ticket is for 3. Unfortunately, it's 3 in the morning. Saturday morning, to be precise. But that's not the worst of it.

Because you left it so long, the local airport is booked up. Jammed to the rafters. It would be impossible to insert yourself into the building as there are apparently more people there than there are grains of sand on the beach. See, the thing is, you're going to have to go to a bigger airport. One a bit further away. Like London. Son, you're going to Heathrow.

It will probably take you four hours to get there on a clear road, give or take an hour or two. And you'll need to arrive an hour early for checking in and passport inspections and baggage checks and full body cavity searches. So you'll be leaving your beloved Boro at about 10pm, possibly before.

So you can see the importance of planning ahead now. It's such a shame you didn't do it before.

But no matter, for this would never happen to you. You're far too sensible. If this were the sort of thing that would happen to a person, that person would probably be called Dan Paige. Because that's exactly what did happen to Dan.

But wait...there's more.

Dan's a good lad. He's never been in trouble, and he loves his mum. He's just got that look about him, as some people do, that says, I’m involved in petty crime, even if he isn’t. He's not particularly large or muscular, he's just plain old regular old Dan. Danny Dan Dan, Dan Dan. Dan the Man. Danny boy. His biggest problem is that he doesn't think things through, or plan ahead.

You see, when he finally booked the ticket, he was quite pleased with it. The early morning flight didn't bother him as it was on a Saturday, and he doesn't work on Saturdays. The bit he didn't think through was that he would have to leave on Friday to get there in time, and Dan does work on Friday. In a factory. From 8 in the morning until 8 in the evening.

Worse still, Dan didn't fully comprehend this until lunchtime on the Friday he was due to fly out—he was looking forward to going home, packing his case, getting a good 10 hours of sleep, and taking a leisurely drive in the general direction of London on Saturday afternoon. It must have come as quite a relief to know that there was no daylight savings time involved in any of this.

The minute Dan clocked off he engaged turbo speed, as top speed just wasn’t fast enough. He raced out the factory door to the car park, ran as fast as he could to his car, kicked the door, ran back in the factory and picked up his car keys, ran back to the car, unlocked it, hopped in, and sped out the car park. He virtually flew down the roads to his house, a small mid-terraced property on the wrong (cheap) side of town, screeched to a halt outside, and ran into the door before giving himself chance to unlock it.

After struggling with the keys for a moment, he got the door open, and bolted up the stairs to his bedroom. He pulled the suitcase off the top of the wardrobe, and unzipped it with one hand while using the other hand to open the wardrobe door. He grabbed handfuls of shirts and flung them into the open suitcase, completely oblivious to the dress and ladies underwear that was already in there. Janie, she who now held the ladder for the window cleaner, had certainly left in a rush.

He piled on the shirts, and moved on to shorts and socks next. Finally, he topped the pile off with two pairs of underpants (you never know when you might need a spare), closed the case, and zipped it up. He rummaged around under the bed and pulled out his passport, which he thrust into his back pocket. Grabbing the suitcase, he ran out the room and slid down the bannister as best he could, leaped out the still-open front door, slammed it behind him, and put the case on the back seat of the car. He inserted himself in the front seat, and waved his hand near the ignition where the car keys should have been.

Muttering under his breath, he jumped out of the car and ran back to the house to retrieve his car keys, but found his way blocked by the front door once again. As he frantically patted his pockets to find the door keys, it dawned on him that he had one of those silly locks that activate when you close the door...no keys were needed. Except when you wanted to get back in.

Stifling a small frustrated scream, Dan steeled himself, and knocked on the door of number 42, the house next door.

He waited.

And waited.

He lifted the flap on the letterbox and shouted through it.

Mrs Nicholls!

No answer.

Mrs Nicholls!

Nothing.

Mrs Nicholls, I’ve seen your daughter down the street with a drug dealer.

Still no answer.

Mrs Nicholls, I’ve got that five quid I owe you...

The door immediately opened, and the space it once occupied was filled by the small, squat figure of Mrs Nicholls.

Gizzit, then.

I haven’t really got it, Mrs Nicholls, sorry. I just need to borrow the key you have for my house. I’ve locked myself out.

Mrs Nicholls frowned. More than she had been before.

What you sayin’ ‘bout my Irene?

What?

You sed you’d seed ‘er down the road wiv a dealer.

No, I was just...

That’s ‘er fella, that is. He’s very well-to-do, you know. Only the finest from ‘im. None of that stuff that’s cut wi’ flour.

The keys, Mrs Nicholls...

In a minute. Anyone would think you had a plane to catch!

I have, Mrs Nicholls...

Well, why din’t you say so? ‘Ere they are.

She thrust a bunch of keys at Dan. Thanking her, Dan turned back towards his own house, when curiosity got the better of him.

Mrs Nicholls, I know you lived here before I moved in, and I understand that neighbours sometimes have keys to each others houses in case of emergency and that kind of thing. But, and this is purely out of interest, why do you have keys for every house on the street?

You can never be too careful, can you, Danny boy?

What does that even mean?

Too right. ‘Urry up and let yerself in.

Dan returned to his front door, and inserted a key. It wasn’t the right one. Nor was the next one, or the one after that. Dan was becoming increasingly frantic.

MRS NICHOLLS! None of these keys open my door!

Mrs Nicholls waddled over and took the bunch of keys from Dan. She leafed through them, and held one out to Dan.

Dan tried it, and the door opened.

How on earth...?

Yer welcome, Danny boy. And don’t worry, I’ll look after yer stuff while yer gone, said Mrs Nicholls and she shut her front door behind her.

That’s what’s bothering me...

---

Dan successfully retrieved his keys and got back in his car without further incident. As he merged on to the A66, he felt a pang of regret, almost as if it would be the last time he would ever see Middlesbrough in his rear-view mirror. Onwards and upwards, he thought, just before he left the A66 at the next junction in order to get to McDonald’s.

He filled his face and his belly, and continued on his journey. Down the A66, the A19, the M1. Minutes turned to hours as the evening turned to darkness. By the time Dan reached the East Midlands it was after midnight and pitch black. He felt his eyelids getting heavy and knew he needed to take a break, as driving several hundred miles after a twelve hour shift didn’t seem to be agreeing with him. He left the M1 somewhere around junction 26A, following a sign for Services, and headed down the dual-carriageway towards the town of Woodlands.

In his semi-conscious state, Dan took the wrong exit on a roundabout, and ended up in the Woodlands Industrial Estate. He attempted a U-turn near the front gates of a packaging firm, clipped the kerb, and smashed his left headlight on the gatepost. He cursed under his breath, put his foot down, and got out of there as fast as he could.

Again taking a wrong turn, he skirted around the edge of Timberton, and narrowly avoided turning down the dirt track that led to Carway’s Farm. He drove under a railway bridge that distracted him just long enough for him not to notice an approaching roundabout, which he drove straight into, and subsequently screeched to a stop right in the middle thereof.

Breathing heavily and panic stricken, he slowly rolled off the far side of the roundabout, and found himself on a well-lit road with a tall modern building to his right, and an old run-down pub to his left, simply named The Tavern.

Just after The Tavern was a small roundabout where Dan could turn either left or right. The left turn was signposted as Woodlands, while the right turn was unmarked. Not wishing to get lost in the industrial estate again, he risked turning right.

He passed a small sign a few hundred feet further down the road that said, Bentley Hill, and soon discovered that the sign marked the bottom of a hill. The long slow incline took him several minutes to crest, and as he neared the top he could have sworn that he saw a short man dressed in green hanging by his arms from a lamp post. Dan desperately needed a break.

He followed the road around to the right, and as he passed the marketplace, the car stuttered and lurched. The pizza shop on the market place was still open, and the noise the car made caused the immense man behind the counter to peer out the window with a concerned look on his face. The car rolled on by, and the man returned to polishing the counter and picking his nose.

Dan was suddenly feeling less tired, as his one-headlight-stutter-mobile was causing him to stay alert. He reached the far side of the market, and started the descent into Benby. As he drove on, he passed through Shireville, ignored the sign for Small Failings, and drove up the hill to Peakerwick. The view, even in the middle of the night, was stunning - the street lights spread out before him like so many Christmas Trees. It occurred to him that this would be a romantic place to bring Janie to. He must let the window cleaner know.

He continued down the hill on the far side of Peakerwick, much too lost to care about the window cleaner any more, and found that the right turn he was headed towards was much sharper than he anticipated. To add to his woes, the brakes decided they didn’t want to fully comply with his request, and he took the corner on no more than two wheels. He skidded under a bridge, scraping the side of the car, and clipped the entrance sign for Edwinstown Abbey before screeching to a halt at the top of Bumble Lane. Catching his breath, he slowly let the car roll down the winding road towards Upper Bumble. It seemed as though everyone was asleep in Upper Bumble, so he carried on towards Nether Bumble, which was further down this impossibly long hill. Just as he reached the outskirts of Nether Bumble (right next to the sign that showed the direction of the train station and Other Bumble, the Bumble that sat on the other side of the tracks), the one remaining headlight went out, the engine went pop, and the car rolled to a stop. Lucky for him that Nether Bumble was the low point around these parts.

Feeling as frustrated as a lipless man trying to play a trumpet, Dan got out the car, and kicked the front of it. The bonnet popped open and the engine blew steam in his face. Screaming in pain, Dan stumbled sideways, tripped over his own feet, and scraped his knuckles down the radiator as he fell to the floor. His hands were now both bleeding, one from the radiator, one from the sudden introduction to the ground, and Dan found himself feeling very sorry for himself, sitting in a bit of