The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling Read Free Book Online

found time to change into her Dr. Scholl’s, nearly turned an ankle as she backed away from the windows in haste, and hurried behind the counter. Howard walked slowly, majestically, to occupy the space behind the till, like a gunner moving to his post.
    The bell tinkled, and Dr. Parminder Jawanda pushed open the door of the delicatessen, still frowning. She did not acknowledge Howard or Maureen, but made her way directly to the shelf of oils. Maureen’s eyes followed her with the rapt and unblinking attention of a hawk watching a field mouse.
    “Morning,” said Howard, when Parminder approached the counter with a bottle in her hand.
    “Morning.”
    Dr. Jawanda rarely looked him in the eye, either at Parish Council meetings, or when they met outside the church hall. Howard was always amused by her inability to dissemble her dislike; it made him jovial, extravagantly gallant and courteous.
    “Not at work today?”
    “No,” said Parminder, rummaging in her purse.
    Maureen could not contain herself.
    “Dreadful news,” she said, in her hoarse, cracked voice. “About Barry Fairbrother.”
    “Mm,” said Parminder, but then, “What?”
    “About Barry Fairbrother,” repeated Maureen.
    “What about him?”
    Parminder’s Birmingham accent was still strong after sixteen years in Pagford. A deep vertical groove between her eyebrows gave her a perennially intense look, sometimes of crossness, sometimes of concentration.
    “He died,” said Maureen, gazing hungrily into the scowling face. “Last night. Howard’s just been telling me.”
    Parminder remained quite still, with her hand in her purse. Then her eyes slid sideways to Howard.
    “Collapsed and died in the golf club car park,” Howard said. “Miles was there, saw it happen.”
    More seconds passed.
    “Is this a joke?” demanded Parminder, her voice hard and high-pitched.
    “Of course it’s not a joke,” said Maureen, savoring her own outrage. “Who’d make a joke like that?”
    Parminder set down the oil with a bang on the glass-topped counter and walked out of the shop.
    “Well!” said Maureen, in an ecstasy of disapproval. “‘Is this a joke?’ Charming!”
    “Shock,” said Howard wisely, watching Parminder hurrying back across the Square, her trench coat flapping behind her. “She’ll be as upset as the widow, that one. Mind you, it’ll be interesting,” he added, scratching idly at the overfold of his belly, which was often itchy, “To see what she…”
    He left the sentence unfinished, but it did not matter: Maureen knew exactly what he meant. Both, as they watched Councillor Jawanda disappear around a corner, were contemplating the casual vacancy: and they saw it, not as an empty space but as a magician’s pocket, full of possibilities.
    VIII
    The Old Vicarage was the last and grandest of the Victorian houses in Church Row. It stood at the very bottom, in a big corner garden, facing St. Michael and All Saints across the road.
    Parminder, who had run the last few yards down the street, fumbled with the stiff lock on the front door and let herself inside. She would not believe it until she heard it from somebody else, anybody else; but the telephone was already ringing ominously in the kitchen.
    “Yes?”
    “It’s Vikram.”
    Parminder’s husband was a cardiac surgeon. He worked at the South West General Hospital in Yarvil and he never usually called from work. Parminder gripped the receiver so tightly that her fingers hurt.
    “I only heard by accident. It sounds like an aneurysm. I’ve asked Huw Jeffries to move the PM up the list. Better for Mary to know what it was. They could be doing him now.”
    “Right,” whispered Parminder.
    “Tessa Wall was there,” he told her. “Call Tessa.”
    “Yes,” said Parminder. “All right.”
    But when she had hung up, she sank down into one of the kitchen chairs and stared out of the window into the back garden without seeing it, her fingers pressed to her mouth.
    Everything had