The Murder of Sal Mansi

A village. A whisper. A mystery...

By nine-thirty on a Tuesday morning, Sal Mansi was dead. At least, that was how the villagers of Pennycross Bridge understood it. No confirmation had been offered. But then why let the truth get in the way of a good story?

The inquest began at Margo Handford’s coffee shop. The smell of fresh coffee and toast burnished the nostrils of the jury. They gnawed at the bones of the tale. The yellow clock on the wall stood witness to opinion and say-so.

‘Had it coming,’ stated Charlie Brinkworth.

He muttered the words, as he stabbed his pencil at a crossword clue in his paper. Shoulders hunched, he jerked at his faded tweed jacket and slid sharply in his seat. Grey hair bristled tightly around his ears, glasses tilting precariously at the end of his nose, as if about to topple.

‘Had what coming? That’s a bit harsh!’ Margo retorted, ‘That’s no way to speak of the dead!’

Connie McGuinness’s brow was furrowed as usual; it was a constant on her pale visage. Her red hair was scrunched up with a pink bow, which looked as annoyed as she was. She gripped her purse tightly, mirroring the tightness in her chest. Her discomfort had nothing to do with disapproval. She hated this discussion. But the thought of Sal Mansi gone was unbearable. She readied her slight frame for the fight.

‘Listen, we don’t even know he’s dead! Has a body been found?’

‘Things were found at his home, blood on the floor of his study, police told me,’ informed Margo.

Connie fought back,

‘The police told you? What did they do, send you a text? You should stick to making sandwiches, not rumours!’

Margo set the espresso machine into a frenzied gurgle.

'I’m telling you, there is something afoot. Reckon it’s murder myself.'

Charlie let his pencil slip from his grasp and wrapped both hands tightly around his teacup. His shoulders drooped; he stared into the cup as if searching for answers.

‘He got justice in spades, I tell you.’ he muttered.

The words peeled from him like the worn leather patches from his elbows. A bell announced the arrival of a customer. The door gently closed behind Billy Dibble. The floor gathered some more flakes of paint as the door settled back into the frame. He spoke loudly as he approached the counter.

‘You heard about Sal Mansi? Terrible business.’

Connie’s frustration grew,

‘But we don’t know that he’s dead!’

'They found the back door window smashed too, no doubt about it,' Margo added as she handed Billy his usual latte.

Billy Dibble slumped into a battered chair, parking his coffee with a deliberate thud beside him.

‘Mmm, it doesn’t look good, does it? Shakes you up a bit, too. No one gets murdered in these parts.’

Margo rested her elbows on the counter, her pink apron stiffening at her full upper arms,

‘What about Todd Cafferty? That was nasty.’

Connie signalled her affirmation,

‘Yeah, I’ll give you that one. He was definitely murdered, they found the body too. No doubt there.’

‘Another wrong ‘un if you ask me,’ stated Charlie.

He had reached the back page of his journal, taking in the sports gossip. Margo stared out at the village square. The rain held off for now. Dark clouds rolled over the village green, mirroring the storm of gossip inside. She stifled a yawn.

‘And Jimmy Norton, of course.’

‘That was almost 30 years ago,’ argued Connie.

‘Murder is murder and knows no timeframes, Connie,’ she battled back.

‘I liked Jimmy,’ stated Charlie.

Billy checked his phone as he sipped at his hot drink,

‘I just don’t understand why someone would want to murder Sal Mansi. He was well-liked by most.’

'Was he hell,' mumbled Charlie.

Billy giggled back at him,

‘So, you reckon he was a bad sort, Charlie?’

‘I just heard things. He kept some rum company, I can tell you.’

Margo shot Billy a quick grin. Connie clamped her lips and shook her head sharply in disapproval.

‘Tell me more, tell me more as the song goes, ’ Billy chided.

Charlie nodded at Margo, the time-worn signal to get him another cup of tea,

‘I’m no gossip me, but he was involved in some dodgy stuff.’

Connie gripped her purse tighter,

‘He was a writer, Charlie!’

The old man shook his head disapprovingly,

‘You never heard of Graham Greene? He was a writer too, but he was also a British spy.

'And John Le Carre,' added Billy.

Charlie continued,

'Ian Fleming was another. It was all a front. I tell you, Sal Mansi was a ne’er-do-well!'

Margo’s phone signalled the arrival of a text. She rested a spoon on Charlie’s saucer as she opened it.

‘Well, that seals it! Old Mrs Sheringham just texted. She says she just heard that the police have extended the cordon around his house. If that’s not a murder, then I don’t know what is!’

Connie’s breath tightened.

‘Have they found a body?’

A grin appeared on Margo’s face as she read on,

‘She says they got sniffer dogs at the scene now. They’ll find him in no time. Nailed on murder, it is.’

Billy swallowed the last of his coffee,

‘Well, I always liked him myself, not that I spoke to him much. Always thought he had a bit of class. You don’t meet many of his type.’

Charlie doubled over with a sudden splutter and sneeze, yanking out his starched handkerchief to stem the outbreak.

‘What type? The wrong type? Told you all…a wrong ‘un.’

Time gnawed away at the morning. The yellow clock on the wall ticked and tocked to itself, unchallenged as the villagers went about their daily business. Time would fade, but the gossip would remain.

*****

It was twelve-thirty on a Saturday afternoon, and still no body had been found. It had been almost six months since the villagers pronounced the murderous death of Sal Mansi. Rumour remained in the village air of Pennycross Bridge. The gossip was as alive as the calves on Jed Branning’s farm.

‘Can’t believe they still haven’t found him?’ muttered Margo Handford.

Billy Dibble was setting up the tombola stall. It was part of the day’s annual Summer Fete. He lifted the tombola machine onto a rickety table. It now carried more weight than the villagers’ rumours. He poured the prize tokens into the machine. All the rewards were equally bizarre. Most of the oddballs in the village would probably find a use for a lucky left sock, a three-day-old bun from Margo’s Coffee shop, a faded polaroid photo of the Pennycross Bridge fete from 1974, and an umbrella with three broken spokes.

‘It is strange, I grant you,’ reasoned Billy.

Billy spun the tombola machine with a sharp flick, watching the tickets rattle inside. Margo scanned the village green. Her gaze swept over familiar faces interspersed with the odd stranger milling about. Nosy City Types were everywhere, she thought to herself.

‘Mind you, he could have been “disposed of”?’ she offered.

‘Disposed of? By whom?!’ Billy asked.

‘Well, you know old mother Sheringham? Her friend’s neighbour has a pig farm in Creaky Hollow.’

Billy barely contained his laughter,

‘You’ve been watching too many gangster movies.’

Margo leaned in, lowering her voice as she glanced around,

'Perhaps so. Also, I saw people slipping in and out of his house before he vanished.'

‘There you go then, what more evidence could one need? Definite foul play,’ Billy teased gently.

Margo scanned the village green,

‘Going to be a busy one this year Billy, look at them all rolling in.’

The village green swelled. Nosy City Types mingled with families, screaming kids, shouting mums, and scowling dads. All were here to kill time. A tall man with a cane and a fedora hat wandered around aimlessly, suited and booted; another Nosy City Type. A young woman carried a notepad and a pen. She was in her mid-thirties, with long red hair. She wore a short tartan skirt, heels, and a brown suede jacket. She looked inquisitive. A lost child rubbed tears from one eye as she gripped a balloon tightly with her other hand. Old ladies sat on benches and looked on. Some tutted in disapproval at passing youngsters, envious of their hopes and dreams. Some were spinning yarns about Sal Mansi, flibbertigibbets with sandwiches and flasks of tea.

‘I hear he masterminded an art gallery heist, got away with millions. The writer thing was a smoke screen,’ an old lady in black reckoned.

‘Never did belong here anyway,’ grumbled another.

‘Nonsense, he was rumoured to be the next Poet Laureate!’ responded a white-haired lady in a light purple maxi dress, large tote bag at her feet.

‘Probably why he was murdered by those Russians then,’ another stated absurdly.

The Poem Seller sat at his tiny stall. He wore a white trilby hat with a brown feather tucked in the band. Adorned in a white jacket and trousers and brown brogues, twenty pounds would guarantee the purchaser an original poem written by his fair hand. A bohemian couple paused before him. A baby-filled papoose was strapped to the father’s back. The Poem Seller recited lines to the couple,

“Beneath the bridge where whispers sleep, A shadow drifts, a secret to keep. Coins may fall, and tales may spin, Yet some vanish where they’ve always been.”

Money exchanged hands. The bohemian couple walked away. They seemed to skip along to a background noise of flapping bunting and jangling coins hitting charity buckets. Connie McGuinness found herself in a tent crossing the Tarot woman’s palm with several pieces of silver. The tent opening flapped loudly as Connie took a seat. Her nostrils were tickled by the quiet incense burning on the table. The Tarot woman began. She laid three cards down. Connie was too scared to look. The woman coughed gently.

‘Well now, I see that you have been seeking someone. I see you are still seeking that very person. You fear they may be gone forever, but you hold onto a glimmer of hope that they will return.’

Connie’s skin tingled, cold, and shivery.

‘I knew it!’

Connie jerked upward, bolted from her chair, and burst from the tent, her breath catching. Outside, she collided headlong with Charlie Brinkworth, nearly sending him sprawling on the grass.

‘Steady on, young’un!’

‘Sorry, Charlie, it’s him, though; he’s still alive! She told me.’

‘Not that wrong, ‘un, Sal Mansi? Who told you?’

The young woman with the pen and pad approached them both.

‘Sorry to interrupt, did I hear you mention Sal Mansi?’

‘What’s it to you?’ barked Charlie. Connie gently pushed him aside,

‘Pardon my friend’s ignorance; his manners have withered with age. Why do you ask?’

‘I am investigating his disappearance. I work for Pennycross and District Gazette.’

Plumes of steam exited Charlie’s nose and ears,

‘Oh, a journalist, we’ve no place for your sort here, this is a village fete, no room for your sort at all. This is a family event!’

His grizzly, cragged visage turned to his fellow villager,

‘If you got any sense, young Connie, you’ll say nowt to this one here. They’re all trouble. You’ll be all over the tabloids in the blink of a chicken’s eye!’

More Nosy City Types wandered past the real ale tent, and voices were heard from inside the small marquee,

‘I’ve heard he isn’t dead, Mrs Attwell at the post office says he is in Lanzarote, living in a finca…whatever that is.’

‘That’s a load of donkey twaddle,’ offered another voice.

‘Sick of hearing about it!’ protested another.

A young busker with an acoustic guitar sang Ed Sheeran songs. Almost apologetic in his delivery, he smiled at passers-by between the sweetly delivered lyrics. The stranger in the fedora hat and cane lobbed some coins into his open guitar case.

The young woman with the notepad and pen continued her futile questioning of the villagers. But she wasn’t from Pennycross Bridge; therefore, she wasn’t one of them. The drawbridge had been raised. The wind blew gently around the green; people danced, laughed, and speculated. The busker’s efforts fought for space with the chimes of the Morris dancers’ bells.

*****

The Pennycross Bridge Annual Fete ran out of steam around 8pm. The day's gossip now calcified into hard fact. The fete stalls stood empty, bunting trailing along the grass between them. Abandoned tombola tokens were carried by an occasional summer breeze.

The air was hot, and the dialogue hollow in the bar of the Beggar’s Banquet public house. Connie McGuinness stood alone with a glass of sherry, a hopeful grin on her lips. The woman with the notepad and pen sat in the corner, soaking up the tired villager’s words. Connie threw a glance her way,

‘He wasn’t what they say, you know.’

She stopped herself, cheeks warming. The others continued,

‘Sick of hearing his name now,’ moaned one.

‘Told you, a wrong ‘un!’ repeated Charlie Brinkworth.

Different voices threw in vapid opinions,

‘Can’t we move on now?’

‘He won’t be missed!’

‘Sal who?!’ shouted another.

Joint laughter filled the air. The woman with the notepad and pen checked her watch. The last train out of Pennycross Bridge called out to her.

A faded Polaroid of the 1974 fete blew around the platform as the woman with the notepad and pen waited. The lost child with the balloon was now reunited with her parents. An umbrella with three broken spokes hung from the wire fence on the other side of the railway track. The train ground to a slow halt, the travellers boarded.

The woman with the notepad and pen found a seat. Opposite her sat the stranger with the fedora and cane. He removed the hat and laid the cane on the table as she put the notepad and pen into her bag. They nodded at each other,

‘So?’ the stranger asked.

‘Everyone’s all but written you out…one way or another. Well, almost everyone.’

‘Connie McGuinness?’

The woman nodded. Sal Mansi sighed,

‘She’s too good for their whispers. Either way, it turns out that people will decide your story for you, I guess. Dead or alive, it hardly matters.'

Her brow furrowed.

‘And you went this far… just to know?’

He smiled faintly,

‘I walked among them unseen. I listened. I watched. And I learned what whispers do when the subject isn’t there to answer.’

The guard’s whistle blew; the train shuddered into life. Pennycross Bridge began to shrink behind them; its whispers trapped on the cobbles. A social corpse was already buried while the living walked away.