This month Huw Kennair-Jones, briefly the editor of The Archers, leaves Ambridge for the bright lights of ITV. The last day at work is a wonderful opportunity for a leg pull. You can delete Donald Trump’s Twitter account or, in this case, leave every man in Ambridge under suspicion of attempted murder.
It happened during the Hunt Ball, which everyone said was a roaring success though most of them were unaccountably absent for lengthy periods. Matt, a man with the popular appeal of a dog fox, was in The Bull, bibulously discussing hopeless love with the landlord (“So set ’em up, Joe”). Joe understandably urged him to get some fresh air. A screech of tyres ... a whispered “Lilian!” ... and Matt was in Borsetshire General with broken ribs, a collapsed lung, head injuries and an induced coma. The kindly consultant – but not the kind I’d want at my deathbed – urged a distraught Lilian not to look on the bright side.
So who tried to murder Matt?
Was it Justin, Lilian’s jealous fiance, who arrived at The Bull looking for Matt and dressed to kill “in a dicky bow with a face like thunder”? Or Alistair, the vet, who recently killed a horse and may have acquired a taste for it? Or Adam, the gay ploughman, who thumped Matt to spread the suspects about a bit? Or almost any of the tiresome Ambridge teenagers: Freddie, the scion of stately Lower Loxley, high on magic mushrooms; or Josh, a used-tractor dealer, who has treated himself to a flash new car. The only obvious innocent is David Archer, who has just returned from his hols in the Algarve, saying, incriminatingly: “I could murder a sausage sandwich!”
Matt, magically recovered, is behaving like a man who knows very well who wants him dead and is trying to flee the country with a couple of suspiciously heavy suitcases. As he has clearly been working for a shady Costa Rican racing consortium and, as clearly, cheating them, I think PC ’arrison Burns, our ’ercule Poirot, should be looking for someone in a sombrero with, possibly, a donkey.
Meanwhile, does anyone fancy being the next editor of The Archers? All offers considered. Luncheon vouchers available. Long-term commitment preferred.
- Next instalment … 5 December
