I raised my eyebrows ‘The door is locked all day isn’t it?’ I said
‘The key was in the lock,’ countered Jonathan, ‘so of course I went in, I picked up the candlestick by the door in case he attacked me and I crept to the vestry where the noise was.’
I held my breath wondering what on earth was going to come next, wondering if poor old Mr. Sutton, the Vicar, who was quite deaf and would have heard nothing, was lying prostrate on the floor… A heavy brass candlestick would have been a formidable weapon. Jon continued...
‘The cupboard door was open, and there was a huge bottle of wine on the table and that metal cup we drink out of when we are in church, was beside it. The bottle looked too full so…’ here the narrative faltered.
‘Yes Jon, yes do tell me more!’
Well’, he said defensively ‘I was thirsty so I took a drink out of the bottle. I spilled a bit so I used that metal cup. My Dad says you must never leave wine without its lid as it goes off, so I drank a little bit more. I couldn’t find the lid. No one was there to ask either.’ he added virtuously.
‘How much was left in the bottle when you’d finished, Jon?’
‘Erm… a bit.’
Jonathan was in my class until his family moved to Vienna.
